Beyond Eternity
by faerieMagic07
Summary: Sarek and Amanda continue to survive on the planet for which they were trapped. Relying on each other may have forged a new relationship dynamic that both parties seem reluctant to accept. Inevitably, by mere random chance, their destinies have changed and there was nothing they could do to turn back the clock. They were drawn to each other and locked by their own wills.
1. Illogical Human, Crazy Vulcan

This story is a fanfiction of a fanfiction. Listen, I'm not as good a writer as **TomFoolery**.

It's just that after I read her story _**"Between Now and Eternity"**_ I got a bad case of Earth-porn fever. Or Arg-117p-porn fever since that was the name of the planet they were stranded in. Then there's that rich complicated relationship dynamics between two strangers who owe each other their lives. He would certainly allow her some liberty closer to himself albeit their relationship is platonic, her being his survival partner.

I apologize in advance for ruining it with bad writing. If you want to visit the original beautiful story, you can find it here:

s/12787345/1/Between-Now-and-Eternity

So all you need to know is that this fanfiction assumes **_Between Now and Eternity_** Story up until they found another escape pod and went back to their main camp. It goes AU from there. They don't get off-planet because the deuterium fuel was not enough. You probably need to read that story first before you enjoy this fic.

PS. I've no beta. This is probably going to be a messy fic.

PPS. I don't own **Startrek** or **Arg-117p**. They belong to **CBS** and **TomFoolery** respectively.

**Arg-117P: Day 90**

Winter season has hit its hardest punch. It had been four days now since the full-blown blizzard outside had started. They couldn't access the door hatch of their escape pod because it was now buried with snow. Fireplace outside was buried too, along with the firewood which meant there was no chance of getting warm by fire.

They turned on the heat, setting it to the lowest temperature they could tolerate as much as possible. More weather like this and their power supply might not get them through winter.

The food supply was also faring the same. After two months of winter, Food foraged from the planet were all gone. Day after day they made it last longer but the winter days seem to stretch on indefinitely. They were now at the mercy of the rations. Rations were down to 54 units, one ration per day, and there were still 60 days to go before the salvation of spring.

_Always winter but never Christmas._ Those were the worst places.

Another escape pod came hurtling down from the sky which had the probability of carrying 40 more life-saving rations. It was too risky to travel there with these unpredictable blizzards. Even so, they will have to go as soon as the storm let up. 40 rations could be stretched into 20 days if both of them continue to eat only one. Which means they will only have to worry about 20 more days before winter is over.

The storm ended the next day but it took another three for the snow that kept them buried to melt to get them free to open the hatch. Thankfully, even the pale winter sun, was enough to get it melted.

Then they had to push back against the frozen hatch. It wouldn't come off at first. Amanda's foreboding grew when it look longer and longer to open the latch. Every time they try another failed attempt, the feeling that they may be stuck inside forever grew. But Sarek heated up the pod warmer, and the door hatch finally broke.

Momentary happiness of being free was dampened by the bitter frost when her face made contact with the outside air. The moment Amanda got out of the pod, she wanted to do nothing more but go back inside. But Sarek was behind her so she pushed forward with great effort. The frost was like tiny knives to her skin, But the heavy coat that she wore seems to have blunted its edge. For a time.

It was just one trouble after another.

Their rucksacks were already ready days before and filled with food that could last them each for four days. So they set off on the cold winter snow without no further delay. Walking further and further away from the pod provided her no comfort.

Thick snow carpeted the ground making their steps barely have any sound. An occasional scruffling of the Rikki-Tikki would dart on the surface. It was a welcome change from the flat white stretched before her that seem to go on and on. Just when Amanda thought she was already slightly enjoying herself, small snowflakes began to fall.

She was in denial at first. It was just a few flakes.

_Please stop falling, please stop falling._ A few flakes turned into sprinkles. After ten more minutes, they found themselves in the middle of a heavy snowfall. And this time, there was no pod near yet to give them relief.

That night, they bivouacked in the open moor. There were no trees to shield them from the night wind. Amanda huddled closer to the fire for warmth. Amanda pulled the tab to her ration pack and made the most of the hot steam it provided.

The hot food warmed her stomach. From all the food deprivation she's been experiencing, the feel of the food warming her seems to give her a near orgasmic joy. It didn't last long.

The fire crackled healthily away from the harsh wind. She tried to warm her hands by the hot sides but even though it seems to warm a big surface of her hands, it did not seem to provide any relief for long. After about an hour of enduring the cruel cold, Amanda couldn't take more of it.

"Listen," Amanda finally spoke, decorum making way for survival. "This won't do."

"Are you voicing out another set of complaints to factors which we already anticipated to encounter?"

"Let me finish. Look," said Amanda, gulping. "We're both freezing. If we don't act fast, hypothermia might get us faster. But there is another way to produce heat." She looked at everywhere except Sarek. Amanda had the impression that Vulcans would have faced death better than do what she was suggesting. But then again, it was not as if they just did not do the unthinkable during his high Pon Farr.

"What do you suggest?"

"I suggest we snuggle," said Amanda, but it came out as a whisper.

"Could you reiterate what you had just said?"

That was the closest thing Sarek could say that meant 'really?'

"We could sleep back-to-back," said Amanda. "It's one of the survival tactics humans do during winter. It will prevent the heat from escaping our bodies."

Sarek went silent for a moment.

"Sarek?" she prompted.

"Yes," he said finally. "That seems a feasible solution."

Amanda stared at him daring him to do the first move. Finally, she sighed. Sarek might have agreed, but he would never be the one to venture out and do it. She contemplated first if she would just let him freeze a bit more until her conscience got the better of her or he finally gets some sense of logic and kicks useless dignity aside, but she was far too merciful for that. So she stood up.

The moment she stood up, Sarek had also stood. So they were locked in a checkmate where none of them would make a move.

"Should I-"

"Would it be appropriate-"

"No, I should move to your side. It looks cosier."

"I concur."

Finally, after a few more awkward blunders, she slipped inside his sleeping bag. She opened the zipper of her own sleeping bag and placed it on top of both of them. The two blankets now covering their body offered a higher degree of relief than just one. They lay with each other's back against each other. The moment she touched Sarek's back, she sighed in relief. "Oh heat. Finally."

"I should have suggested this sooner," muttered Amanda under her breath.

"I agree." He heard. Vulcan ears.

"You do?!" When she heard Sarek sigh, she explained. "I mean, You think this is a good idea? I had thought you would not think of doing this no matter how desperate. You always seem to sleep as far away from me as possible." Sarek could not see her face, but he could still sense a hint of bitterness in it.

"I am amenable to the idea. As I am not a resident of a planet that experiences winter, I have no technique such as this is my information arsenal. You are freezing also and in the same danger of hypothermia. This is the right cause of action before our temperature goes down dangerously. Why have you not spoken sooner?"

"Well if it wasn't for you Vulcanizing everything, I might have."

"Can you clarify the meaning of your last sentence?" said Sarek.

"Nothing. It's not important."

"I defer to your judgement."

They pressed against each other quite comfortably when Amanda spoke again.

"Um, Sarek?"

"Yes?"

"Are you still awake?"

"As you may surmise."

"I noticed your hands are cold. Will you let me help you?"

"Will you consent?" Amanda spoke again. She knew now touching the hand of a Vulcan was a crime without permission. And as he respected her autonomy to the point of death, it was reasonable to extend the same.

"Yes," he finally said.

She turned to face him and to press her front body back to his back. Then her hands trailed below to touch his hands. The first thing she noticed was that it was ice-cold. The next thing was that he wasn't.

There was a tiny flicker when their hands touched. It immediately stopped when their hands parted. Amanda gasped. Sarek hesitated and drew back his hand, but Amanda gripped it again before he could fully wrench it out.

"No. Your hands are too freezing to leave well alone."

The intense fire of passion flowed again. It was not just sparks now. It was electric, and it seeped through all corners of her being. "Why didn't you tell me?" said Amanda, actually quite shocked that he held such passion underneath his fingers.

"I do not know what it is precisely I should not be telling you."

"That you are still on Pon Farr."

"Amanda," he said slowly, "It is no longer my Pon Farr."

Amanda fell silent.

"I do not intend to make you uncomfortable," he said after a while.

"Me too. I'm making you uncomfortable."

Her amalgam of conflicting emotions was hard to read. Sarek concluded that it was a warm platonic concern for his well-being and nothing more.

"Thank you," she said afterwards when she found her tongue, trying to back paddle and save the awkward conversation she opened about his Ponn Farr. Gratefulness. Contentment.

"To which of the things I did are you expressing your gratitude?"

"To all of them."

She heard Sarek say "Illogical" before she finally fell asleep.

.oOo.

The next day proved more tolerable than the last. Amanda cut some edible tree bark, chopped it to small length and added it to one ration pack which they shared. A half ration of food with a generous supplement of the bark proved to be more sustaining than a full ration. When they finally set forward after their breakfast, wider trees started to appear and it proved to be a marginal shield from the strong wind.

Sarek suddenly stopped on his tracks.

"What's wrong?" she said, stopping beside him. His lips were pursed. She followed his gaze up to the mountain and saw a giant swirling hurricane farther away from the mountain-top. The tricorder that Sarek was tweaking was suddenly beeping dangerously red with its weather prediction. The numbers were rapidly rising higher. Amanda caught the number 152km/h before it went up to 258km/h and still it climbed and beeped higher and higher.

Amanda didn't need to be told twice. Suddenly they were running and running, as fast as they can to find any kind of resemblance to a shelter. If the storm hit and they were still out in the open, it might blow them like paper dolls.

Sarek would stop by a hollow among the trees, then shake his head and continue on.

"Tricorder detected a cave deep enough for shelter but it's 0.63 Kilometer far. I am trying to determine if a shallower one will do," said Sarek.

"We'll just have to make a run for it!" said Amanda.

No matter how fast Amanda ran, it was impossible to look like she was actually having speed. Her coat was thick and the snow was slowing her down. She blinked, the sky grew dark and the mountain that looked like the Devil's doom because of its darkness was no longer there. It was because it was now all around them.

But there was no shelter. All the trees around them were small and ill-equipped to block them from the wind. They have to keep moving forward.

4 minutes, 0.47 Kilometers later, small ice particles began to fall. Not yet dangerous in size but if it was any indication to what was more to come, then she had no intention of staying anymore in the open. The wind blew sharp. Even with their winter jackets, it was cold. Whatever skin exposed without any covering was colder. They could hardly see each other now.

She can only vaguely hear Sarek shouting her name. And her, replying "I'm here!" as loud as she could. Her hand was grabbed and she was pulled and urged forward.

"Climb up!" Sarek was shouting against the wind. He was also pushing her upwards to climb uphill.

She caught a fleeting glance at the tricorder. 47 meters, not far now. 43 meters. It doesn't seem to be moving no matter how much she walked on. The Blizzard raged. 39 meters, just a few more steps. No. It was an upward climb. 39 meters in a flat was different from 39 meters on a climb. One more heavy heave up and then another. She held on to the vines or anything else she could grab, for her dear life. Upward and upward they went.

Then Sarek slipped. Another hell broke loose.

"Sarek!" she shrieked below her. She couldn't see him at all.

"Amanda, go to the caves!"

"Are you alright?!"

"My ankle is damaged. Move to the caves!"

_Crazy Vulcan!_ If he wanted me to move up, he should never have mentioned his ankle. A moment later, a rope dangled beside him in defiance.

"Put that around you and around your two legs! Distribute your weight. I'm going to help pull you up by a rock as a lever!"

"Amanda! The storm!" he seemed angry.

"I'm not leaving here until you move!"

_Illogical human._ He did as she instructed. Then with the help of her rope, his good feet, and a great deal of pain from his bad one, they managed to pull him up to her. She immediately hugged him.

Relief, Joy radiated from her when he touched her. They somehow managed the few meters of the climb. They were finally in the cave. She drew a deep breath revelling on the feeling of lesser cold prickling her lungs.

Upon reaching inside, dropped her bag unceremoniously to the floor to look for the bone-knitter, grabbed Sarek's leg and set to work.

"Do you," she started, her words coming out as deep pants, "really think humans leave comrades behind to die in blizzards?"

The cave was deep enough to keep the wind out for above it. The ground was not blanketed with snow which made every stone prick her when she laid down. But it hardly made any difference now that she was used to hard stony beds. And it was a small price to pay if they were to be out of the sharp wind. They decided to camp there for the night as the storm raged again outside and it was the only thing from miles that could provide a marginal shelter from it.

They survived a cruel snowstorm and were warm enough. It was another narrow escape. There was much to be thankful for. She shuddered to think what would have happened if they did not have the tricorder. Amanda wondered how many narrow escapes they had to go through before they were finally out of the woods.

Outside the Blizzard raged. But they found a corner that the wind could not reach.

Her clothes and hands and ears and chin started to thaw, then everything she wore was wet and wetter. Amanda felt cold. She gripped the sleeping bag to her tighter. She took her clothes off and moved closer to the fire.

She was sweating. She was feverish. It might be just the warm fire. She was hot, cold, shivery, and hungry, but she didn't want to eat. A few more minutes, and there was no more denying it. She finally admitted to herself: she was sick. She could see Sarek looking into her, calling her name. Everything else was a blur. A hypospray bit her neck and she knew no more.

.oOo.

Amanda opened her eyes the next morning. The storm was gone. It just passed them and quickly went away. By the looks of it, the recorded 352km/hour speed did not happen to them. They were only positioned on its fringes. Only the hairs of the violent storm reached them. She looked over to Sarek to greet him good morning. Her words stopped in her lips when he saw his form.

Sarek was shivering in his sleeping bag. He was sweating. Something was wrong. Amanda felt his forehead. He was burning. He mumbling to himself some mixed Vulcan and Standard phrases. She didn't understand the Vulcan.

She looked for the anti-infection hypospray. The liquid inside was all gone.

"Sarek? Why is the medicine all gone?!" she shrieked.

"Administered...to you... last night... you were... burning... dying," he whispered.

"And you didn't think about saving up for yourself?! You had a broken ankle for heaven's sake!"

"Amanda... _T'hy'la_...Would not let you die..." he mumbled further.

Crazy Vulcan. She took off her sleeping bag and draped it over him. She wrapped him up like a cocoon, then blazed the fire on daytime. For the next hour, she was frantic. She took hold of the laser-cutter and cut the nearest tree to hurried logs, praying for the equipment not to go empty on her too. Vulcans were strong, resilient. But they do not do cold.

For their ration packs, she took one spoon and nothing more. The rest, she fed to Sarek. Then she was out in the forest again brandishing her tricorder from tree bark tree bark, looking for something that contained aspirin-like medicinal properties or Vitamin C. When she found a hit, she cut it and boiled it then quickly fed it to her ward. 44mg Vitamin C content. 32mg anti-bacterial. It was not like the hypospray but it was better than nothing.

And all the time he was mumbling incoherently.

"_T'hy'la,_ be with me..._Nam-tor k' e_," he said when she went away from his side to tend to the fire.

"Shhh... don't talk. Don't waste your breath," she got back and whispered to him in his frenzied state. She hugged him on the side in spite of all his blankets and lay her head to his neck then cried the night. "Don't leave me, Sarek. Don't leave me here alone. Don't die on me."

His hands moved a fraction to take hold of her hand that was near his lap. His hands were hot coals. Through his laboured breathing, he was trying to offer comfort to her distress. She didn't let go.

.oOo.

She opened her eyes the next day to find her blanket draped back to herself. Sarek was standing near the entrance of the cave.

"Sarek? Sarek! You're alive!" she rushed over to embrace him. He was warm and breathing and solid. She caught a whiff of his shirt of something that reminded her of sweet pine wood.

"Yes, I am well."

She looked up to him. "You should not have used up all the hypospray on me," she admonished.

"And you should not have waited for me to climb up and put yourself in unnecessary danger," he said steely.

Then came their conversation that consisted entirely of pursed lips, raised eyebrows, and steady defiance. From both parties. It was cut short when her stomach began to growl.

"Have you eaten?"

She shook her head. "Not since last night."

"I see. Eat the last ration pack. You have starved enough."

"No." she steeled her feet. "You've been sick."

"You are recovering also."

"You have an injured ankle," retorted Amanda.

"Alright, we will divide it by half."

"Three fourths-"

"Half."

"Fine."

"It seemed that we have finally arrived at a compromise."

"It would seem so, Mr Ambassador."

His lips quirked into an almost smile. It turned neutral half a second later. "Now that it is settled, let us have breakfast."

And that was the last thing they ate before they arrived at the escape pod.

Author's note:

I'm going to drop this little plot bunny. Because it was jumping in my head and wanted to come out. If anyone wants to take it up and write about it, then go ahead. But the Arg-117P planet is not my planet. It belongs to tomFoolery. It would need another person's copyright permission.

Amanda and Sarek built a life in Arg-117P. They bore many sons and daughters.

One day, the pod accidentally turned on and jolted Sarek and Amanda off the planet. When they got out of the time-dilation they found that they have not aged and they were just Amanda and Sarek once again, with the same clothes as when they first entered the time dilation. (Ring a bell anyone? *cough Narnia *cough)

But when they looked at Arg-117P, lo and behold, a warp-capable civilization has appeared. A civilization that now considers Sarek and Amanda as their highest respected ancestor. There were legends regarding them, something along the lines of "As they ascended from the sky so will they come down again and put wrong into right."

With Amanda and Sarek's space seed planted, it flourished into a civilization. 18000 years of time meant it could follow some of the timelines of earth. World War, Humanistic Evolution: Or should I say, Vumanistic Evolution, seeing as their sons and daughters were all hybrids which became a new separate people with their own set of cultures. The Vumans: Emotionally challenged like Humans, creative, unpredictable tacticians, Inventors and problem-solvers but with IQ and big processing brains as Vulcans. And so we have a race, that has the unpredictability of humans, but the high-functioning brains of the Vulcans.

Spock would be welcomed as the son of Sarek and will be accepted in their society as "one of us" and will finally feel as not an outsider... as a whole person, not a half and half. And because of their more advanced ways, Humans and Vulcans started waking up, accepted diversity as advancement instead of disability, and not treat half-bloods and fourth-bloods as something halves but wholes.

Amanda and Sarek's next visitation to the planet was interpreted as a second coming, and it would be the first contact with the Vumans. Federation is looking into a way to tactically use this to their advantage.

And so from there, you can create a whole set of culture and philosophical viewpoints.

How do you think the Vumans culture, technology and religion would develop to be? Place your bets and your suggestions in the comments!


	2. Winter Shards

A/N: I'm not sure how this chapter turned out. Don't know what works and what doesn't yet. If you have time to spare, please tell me your favourite line and what you felt when you read it. Thank you for reading!

.oOo.

The last of the fruits near their main pod has already been foraged. But the forest beyond their radius was still untouched.

It seemed strange to be carrying back all these supplies but not eating them. They were to eat what they can here, in this part of the forest where they could still forage something, and leave the ration packs untouched.

Amanda proposed they stay there until they could forage all the food. Then just head back to their main pod when they had already swept it bare, just like what they did in the nearby area of their camp. There was no point in going back to their previous pod when the small, but adequate escape pod here was more than capable enough to keep them warm.

The ration packs wouldn't last all winter. In here, they can extend their lives for a few more days. And perhaps outrun it. Back in the old pod meant starvation after ration packs run out.

But there was the issue of the storms. The last time the snowstorms raged on and buried them deep, they were well inside the big pod with oxygen supplies until the snow melted and blew enough for them to get out of the hatch.

It would be different now with a small pod. The oxygen supply inside could only last for twenty days. Ten because there's two of them. What if they were buried for fifteen? The bigger escape pod had oxygen supply of 40 days before the biofilters need to process more air again.

So to remedy this, they stuck a small metal at the hatch to let natural air fill instead of turning on life-support. Those would only be reserved for an emergency blizzard. It was dreadfully cold. But they could not close the hatch's tiny little outlet because then, there wouldn't be any air.

Sarek agreed. And things started to brighten up. A little. They ate what they could forage: frozen berries crystalized it looked like rubies and emeralds, frozen nuts, and barks; a lot of barks. The rations were not to be touched when there was still an abundance of things to forage in this part of the forest. They split up to cover more area. Some days she would come back with nothing but hope that when she arrived at the camp, Sarek would be luckier, or be more probabilistic as he would put it, and have some food in his hand.

When she found something to eat, she would gather it and return to the pod in relatively high spirits. She would show it to Sarek. When at times, both of them came back empty-handed, they'd open one ration and share it quietly for their dinner. Amanda was already conditioned against touching the ration. For her, opening the box meant starvation albeit later. It was a paradox. When what she wanted was to not be hungry, she felt more hungry while eating, knowing that there wouldn't be anything to eat tomorrow. Like a sort of inverted conditioning in her brain. Then she'd be afraid to eat because she'd go hungry. Opening the ration packs only happened rarely, and mostly in the morning, where they would need more calories to burn when they were looking for food. If there was a piece of fruit no matter how small, no ration packs would be opened. The piece of fruit would do well to ward off their hunger for the night.

One day, the thing which they have been dreading finally came. The wind started to blow softly. A little while later it became a whiz. It was the tell-tale signs of another blizzard. It was fortunate that they were both near the pod when the storm came close enough to be identified.

"Amanda, get inside!" Sarek shouted across. For the first time, Sarek was dismayed that Amanda was holding on to a bunch of frozen fruits. From his viewpoint, her strides looked dragging and barely moving, but in reality, she was already running as fast as her legs and her hands holding on to the fruits could carry. Sarek mentally calculated her distance, and the storm's speed, along with the probabilities before he sprinted to her direction.

She grabbed her hand and dragged her back to their little pod.

Sarek timed it perfectly. His eyes never left the tricorder, and his hands held on to the opening. They were taking a risk being buried in this snow with only ten days of life-support. Finally, when the wind was already too strong it might blow off the top hatch, he closed the latch. The automatic life support came to life the moment it locked with the lid. The timer for the oxygen supply started its countdown. Their vigil had begun.

He turned the oxygen supply at 80%. The timer for the oxygen time climbed higher to 12.5 days. They were to sleep if they can since they would use less oxygen when sleeping. They were to avoid talking or moving too much. Amanda scooted beside Sarek to keep herself warm. Then she lay the thick blanket atop them.

A human could not expect to hold such a position without causing mischief. At exactly 35 hours and 24.67 minutes, she finally cracked and started singing. Softly at first, it was almost as if whispering to herself. Until it grew when she thought a louder singing noise was no longer awkward. Sarek swerved his head to look at her.

And still, the blizzard blew. The blizzard blew. They could hear its blowing sound. Amanda would gaze out of the window. It was almost beautiful. If it weren't trying to kill them.

The next day, the snow piled up and up to the window. In a few more hours, Amanda would no longer be able to see the outside whirlwind swirl. And it was causing her distress.

"Sarek, the blizzard. It's going to burry us to death."

"No, it will not."

But it didn't make her any less uneasy.

Amanda was quite surprised when an arm draped around her shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"Endeavoring to increase your serotonin hormone for you to have a higher sense of security." He did not tell her how it was a calculated risk. For it worked both ways. Touching her would also increase his serotonin levels and set the gears of the hormones further connecting Amanda with increased serotonin production. And the cycle would spiral and repeat itself until the thought pattern of an attraction that he was reluctant to form is already too strong to cut. A bond would form. Like a small brook slowly making into an unstoppable crashing river. No matter. If he watches it most carefully, he would prevent it from going deeper and wider. That way there would not be any adverse psychological strains.

But just like any other drugs and enchantments, the more that Sarek does not notice its production, the more potent it has become. Until there would come a time he can no longer live without those chemicals. He would be well beyond saving.

"Thank you."

"It would not be beneficial to have you mentally breakdown from under our current circumstances," he rationalized. It was borne out of need.

"I see," she said quietly. "Helping me was only logical. Like when I held the rope to you instead of going to the shelter alone."

"No, it was not. You should have gone ahead." The words formed on his mouth on its own accord. Part of his brain must have noticed how illogical it was. For to not save himself would also mean Amanda would die. This alone would have served as a red flag for Sarek to cease and desist. It was a red flag to tell him his brain had gone on auto-pilot. On emotions. Amanda must live. Even at the cost of his life. But he was far too gone in the rabbit hole to notice. Falling. Falling. And so he denied its existence.

"Sarek, you could have died!"

"So could you."

She would have argued more but the snow rose higher and she shivered anew.

"Do not worry. Being buried in the snow will be the same as being in space. The pod will keep us safe."

The snow rose steadily up until she could no longer see anything from the window but white. They were now officially buried. She tried to console herself that it made no difference because even if they weren't she would not have been able to go out anyway. But only Vulcans could logic away phobia. Her mind refused to calm down despite all her explanations that it was relatively safe.

Her concerns may have something to do with the fact that Sarek only turns on the heater once in a while. When he turns it on, the energy from the deuterium goes one degree lower. Amanda watched the battery levels blink.

Sarek sensed her distress. In efforts to keep her mind staring at the window, Sarek told her stories from Vulcan. There was this girl, T'Maleth wanted to go to the stars. She was in love with T'Leva. T'Leva did not want to see the stars. But T'Maleth promised she would come back when his time came.

But T'Maleth's ship was stranded in the one Centauri Alpha quadrant. When T'Leva's time came, he would have no other mate, so he died. It was said that up until now, T'Maleth was still trying to get home to T'Leva. And that one day, they would meet among the stars.

"What a romantic Romeo and Juliet story," Amanda exclaimed.

"The story was told to warn Vulcan children to value the logistics of survival in choosing a mate instead of putting more value and weight to emotional factors."

"And humans may argue it would be better to live only a day with a loved one than a thousand elsewhere."

He turned the heater off. The room's temperature started dropping off again. She drew her body closer to him and wrapped the blanket more tightly to both of them. Sarek dutifully noticed it took her focus out of being buried alive. So to keep the morales of the ship, he was logic-bound to tell more.

"Have you ever watched the movie Lost in Space?"

"Another Terran fiction?"

"Yes, it's very informative and entertaining."

"If I had wanted to be informed, I would peruse the journals published in that area of research. There is no need to watch a film which only has bits of information scattered about the story."

"Not everyone can crunch numbers like you."

"Pardon, I do not comprehend how a number which is an abstract representation could be crunched. Does not crunch imply grinding or pulverizing a solid matter into smaller particles?"

Amanda wiped her face from exasperation.

All the time they were talking, Amanda could still hear the tell-tale signs that the blizzard was still going strong on the surface.

Outside their pod, the snow was already frozen. It was as if they had been buried by an avalanche. Day after day, Amanda looked for signs that that snow would finally thaw but there was no sign that it was ever going to relent.

Finally, Sarek concluded they would have to use the thrusters to propel themselves upward to the surface.

Amanda held her breath. If it doesn't work, they would be stuck inside with still no oxygen. The thrusters were turned on, the machine started making the sounds. The snow stood solid and unrelenting. Sarek gave pulse power to the thrusters in bursts. Until finally, the ice on top of them relented, and they were slowly heading upward. It was a slow and steady process, but they were making progress until finally, they were out in the open.

When they got out of the pod, Amanda smelled the cold air of winter and plopped herself to the ground. It was a pale beauty of death that stared at her when they got out. Everything glinted in the faint sun like it was coated with diamonds from the frost.

Sarek merely looked out of the window on what she was up to, then proceeded to pack the bags for another journey.

Sarek cut some thin wood to make a sort of sleigh, so they were able to strip the pod of the additional supplies they might need and carry it back by just dragging it behind them. Two ropes were tied to the plank (Amanda used the typical square knot), then tied to their waist. Both of them were expected to pull their weight. The snow was so deep they did not have a problem dragging it smoothly behind.

They packed the remaining rations to their makeshift sleigh and decided to head for the cave where they once sought shelter from the storm. It was warm enough, and the surroundings would still be teaming with things they could forage.

The ground was flat but now and then they would run into some branches shooting upwards. Amanda assumed they were the top of the trees. The climate here was unforgiving.

They ran into trouble when the sleigh bumped into one of the big lumps of snow. The snow shook off to reveal dried grass, mud and sticks clumped up to make a small hill. When Amanda looked inside the small hole that their sleigh accidentally created, she saw a pile of rikki-tikkis all curled up in a ball sleeping closely together. They did their best to cover the opening. Sarek was in the middle of closing it up when he head Amanda gasp.

"Sarek, look!"

Right in front of them, were more small hill holes for the rikki-tikkis. Avoiding the holes made their progress slow. Sometimes they had to lead the sleigh by their hand to avoid it from hitting anything.

During the nights, they would camp out. Amanda would simply tie a rope from two trees then run their thermal blanket on top of it. Then she would secure the ends to the ground to make it look like a tent. They would sleep in turns to guard the food and from potential predators.

.oOo.

"Home sweet home," said Amanda when they arrived at the cave where they stayed in earlier during the winter storm. She put her bag in the corner like it was her bedside.

"What's for dinner?"

"We have some of the tree bark carvings," replied Sarek.

Amanda chose a comfortable nook to lay their blankets in. She laid out only one since they have never slept apart ever since that debacle in the snow. Sarek glanced at it and made no further inquiry. It was a sleeping arrangement borne out of mutual convenience. When winter is past, they could properly go back to sleeping separately.

At the far side near the cave's entrance was their kitchen. There was a convenient bump on the rocks. They took advantage of this to make a makeshift stove, they only need to lay three rocks to prop up their bowl properly.

When they come back from foraging, Amanda or Sarek would be sure to carry some firewood for it to keep ample supplies.

"Forgive me. I am quite fatigued. I will retire for the night," said Sarek at last. Nobody said anything after that. The pod where they were last staying was not big enough to properly separate. But they had to sit and Sarek had to hold her to stop Amanda from being scared of being buried alive.

Sarek laid on his back with one of his hands on his eyes, presumably to cover it from the light of the fire.

When she was setting up the bed a little while earlier, she didn't think much about it, but it was just naturally assumed that it had to be their sleeping arrangement. There was no question about it. But now that they were doing it, the bed loomed bigger, like an elephant in the room.

She sat there for a while, trying to contemplate what to do next. Very soon the firewood was all burnt up, and it would be illogical to use more if they were to preserve all resources. Illogical. Since when did she start using that word? In any case, there was no need to burn more firewood than necessary. She stomped the fire clean.

Amanda shivered just after a while of stamping on the fire. The cave was dark, now that there was no longer any fire to fill it with light. She found her way to the nook where their bed was located and underneath the thermal blanket, facing away, she laid down in Sarek's arm. She head fit perfectly well in the nook of his arm. When she settled herself, he faced sideways towards her and draped his other arm to draw her close to him. He laid his hand close to her shoulder so that his whole arm seems to cover her body. Amanda tugged the blanket more securely to cover them.

"Goodnight, Amanda."

"Goodnight, Sarek."


	3. Into the Caves

AN: I'm sorry, everyone! The computer industry is a slave-driver and if I don't catch up to the new technology released, it would threaten to leave me behind probably jobless. Gotta learn the new things they release in the market. Every freakin year.

Also, no negative reviews about my last chapter? I was hesitant to post that because I'm not from a winter country and I haven't seen actual snow at all. I might have gotten simple facts wrong. Feel free to correct.

Guest Reviewer: Feel free to PM me if you've got storyline ideas. I would gladly incorporate it if I have the time and the materials to build. Just keep in mind that I can't put them all even if I want to. One can only allot so much time in writing.

.oOo.

Amanda made a bed out of the blankets they got from the last pod. She chose a corner well away from the reach of the wind. A little hollow on the cave floor. The bed fitted almost perfectly in it as if the hollow was especially shaped for their makeshift bed. Sarek started making and piling up bricks on the entrance of the cave to ward off the cold.

Being a cave-woman was not at all demoralizing as she expected. Food supply was low. But they got by with what they can forage. In fact, they lived relatively less cold in it, protected by the dangerous downfall of the temperature outside. It was very different than waking up sleeping outside in the snow, bivouacked against some hollow than waking up inside the cave.

During the evenings, the fire would cackle merrily, casting dancing shadows on the roof of the cave. Sarek slept beside her to keep her from cold. To keep each other from cold, she corrected. She couldn't stop the faint blush that covered her face when she thought about that first night.

Sarek turned back behind him. "Are you alright? Your face has changed colour."

She snapped out of her reverie. "I'm fine. You don't have to stop on my account," said Amanda.

"Understood," he turned back to his front and marched again at a steady pace.

Gathering food in the new environment kept their morale up for quite some time. But as the days began to go longer, they brought in fewer and fewer finds. That was why it was quite some good news when Sarek told her he found a tree still full of nut-like fruits. Winter might have frozen the branches and the nuts themselves, but it was still there. They packed their bags and she accompanied Sarek in getting more. He found it yesterday but was not able to carry everything home.

"I'm coming!" she hurried forward when she saw Sarek gaining considerable distance and turning back to look at her again.

He stopped. "If your complexion does not change, perhaps we should rest for twelve minutes," he said without looking back.

"Why do you suddenly think that's a good idea? You never were a fan of wasting time," said Amanda finally catching up with him.

"Circumstances have changed. The shelter is now nearer in an event of a storm."

"It's alright. We don't have to stop," replied Amanda. She was glad he didn't know anything about blushing.

When they arrived at the tree, Amanda saw for herself the nuts, coated with clean transparent ice that made it look like hanging jewels on the branches. But there were considerably fewer nuts on it. It was not like how Sarek described it.

"This is most unusual. Yesterday the tree still had a large amount of fruit on its branches."

Just then, they saw a Rikki-tikki-like creature, but only bigger, and with more developed teeth come forward to snatch another one of the precious walnut-like fruit and scurry away.

It did not scurry too far to avoid being followed. They saw it enter a hollow of a big tree. When they looked in, there were piles and piles of nuts.

"I'm guessing it's not the only squirrel around here," said Amanda.

"No, It was not." the muscles around his mouth tightened when he stooped down and saw what was inside. But he finally stood up straight, with his face impassive as ever. "Let us go and pick the remaining."

She got into business and dropped to her knees. "Don't worry," she said. "There's still nuts that dropped off from the branch." She proceeded to feel the snow to look for bumps.

Amanda looked at Sarek curiously. It would have been easy for him to stretch his hands and get the nuts from inside the hollow. But here they were groping for left-overs on the ground. And even though they could barely find a couple of walnuts on the floor, still he did not steal. He methodically bent down to forage the fruits, and never once did he even offer one wistful glance at the squirrel's hollow. It was simply not his.

They headed back home at the first sign of the sun waning.

"I'm glad we didn't steal from the squirrels," she said as they walked back to their home cave.

"It was not a squirrel," replied Sarek.

"No. It wasn't," replied Amanda. "But I'm glad you're you." Caring more about technicality than stealing food for his hungry stomach.

Sarek held the walnut fruit in his hand and made a gentle squeeze. The nut made a cracking sound, louder than what Amanda would call comfortable or normal. Then he gave her the piece.

The walnuts appeared heavy, but when they cracked one open, there was only a little meat inside about the size of a single pea, but shaped like an ellipse. One nut could hardly constitute as energy for all the work that they do, but it does provide relief from hunger, and it was already better than collecting flowers and licking the nectar at the bottom.

The meat inside could not compensate for the energy she would have to spend trying to crack it open. If Sarek didn't do it for her, she would be in serious trouble.

She held the nut-meat in her hands and looked at it for some considerable second. The nut was so small but she took her time to bite a small piece of it and savour the taste, making it stay longer in her mouth as much as possible.

.oOo.

_Amanda dreamt of going into a garden full of nuts. There was a fountain in the middle. The branches of the nuts were all over the place. She sat at the edge of the fountain, and right in front of her, a branch stooped down. She picked one and swelled in gratitude that for once, finding food was so easy. Only she couldn't open it. When she tried to open one, she found that it still had a shell covering and she needed to open up another layer. She tried to crack that open too only to find the same thing. She was really hungry and the only thing in her mind was to get at the fruit at the centre of it. When it was apparent that there was no end to the shell, she lay on the grass and tears started flowing from her face._

_"Woman, why are you crying?" said a voice._

_She looked up to find Sarek. He was wearing a robe that flowed down to his toes, with embroidered patterns and curling letters she couldn't recognize. He looked so peaceful and clean. His hands were not the hands of a man in hard labour. It was back to being the hands of an aristocrat. "The nut won't open. There are too many shells. I thought I had cracked it open then there is always another. I'm never going to reach the heart."_

_Sarek stepped towards her and sat next to her._

_"You do not have to open it. I give it to you freely," replied Sarek. He ran a thumb to brush her cheek. Amanda closed her eyes to revel in it. She placed her hands over one of his that was touching her face._

_"Your hands are warm."_

_When she opened her eyes again, his blue eyes gazed back at her. Inquisitive - searching. As if he was trying to find something in her eyes. He tilted his head and gave her a smile, peaking at the tip of his mouth._

She woke up to find herself very hungry. The nuts were making her hungrier instead of the opposite. It almost seemed like an _obsession_ instead of a craving. Which was not a bad thing if you think it's just the body wanting to survive. Not overindulge. There was no danger of over-indulgence in their current food supply. She looked wistfully over to their supply of nuts and pursed her lips. They had their share. It was only to be eaten now during an emergency.

Seeing that there was still a big supply of the tree barks, she decided to cook one for herself, but not after casting a sideways glance at Sarek. She saw the lines of a hard person who was probably used to being alert even in sleep. It must have come with the job. Politicians are always ready for signs of murder or bloodbath. But his face was more peaceful now.

She built a fire out of their wood supply and laid a pan over it. She tried to keep herself from making any sound. But the more she tried to move forward with her cooking, the more she realized it was close to impossible. Sarek finally opened his eyes when one of the cooking utensils made a clanging noise.

"I'm sorry for waking you up," whispered Amanda. Sarek got up with one foot, as if he was never asleep and proceeded to go further into the cave.

Amanda ate the tree barks with guilt. She could have moved a little further. How could she be such an inconsiderate ass?

He was gone for a while before Amanda started to worry. She knew he just went to find a quiet place to meditate but there was also a possibility that may have gotten in trouble and needed some help. The light came slowly through the exposed part of the entrance then the snow came steadily bellowing with it, sending flakes to where she sat. One whiff from the wind pushed her back deeper into the cave. It was too dangerous to go outside. She needed to get away from the entrance. She decided to follow him deep into the cave.

Mindful that any voice inside the cave could trigger some fallen rocks, she whispered as loudly as she could.

"Sarek?"

She could smell the air getting musty as she went deeper. The air was damp and cold. There was a shiny thin line on the wall of the cave. At first, she thought it was another object trapped among two fissures. But when she looked closer, she found that it was as much part of the rock, smooth and blended in it like a layer of clay with different colours. Only it wasn't clay. It was hard stones. She followed the line further until it became wider and wider.

She saw Sarek at last. His back was turned. He was looking up to the roof, where a considerable amount of light was falling on the gemstones embedded in the rock.

"What are those shiny things?" said Amanda.

Sarek ran his hand towards the walls of the cave. "Opals." He picked up one loose opal rock from the ground.

Amanda pursed her lips. "If they were nuts, I would have been happier," she muttered.

She went forward, tracing the shining walls with her fingers, when all of a sudden she stepped on some loose pebbles, then down and down she went. She fell. It was like going inside Alice's rabbit hole. Only, it was a slope of pebbles she was falling into, not directly down. It was a generous slope, but not enough to keep her from falling from gravity. And the little pebbles slid right where her boots landed. It was not at all solid. Then suddenly, the falling stopped.

"Amanda! Are you alright?" Sarek was almost shouting.

"Ugh, I think I just stepped on dragonette droppings."

"Amanda."

"I'm fine. No broken bones. Some few gashes" shouted Amanda back.

"Can you see anything?" asked Sarek.

Amanda looked around her. There was a wide-open space in front of her. Stalactites and stalagmites stocked the roof and the floor on the edges. It contained a different glow. It looked so fragile too, as one little push with her hands could topple it all down. On the floor of the cave was a wide bed of yellow bush overgrowth. It was basked in soft sunlight.

"There are a lot of bushes with yellow flowers in here. So many of them. It grew here because sunlight could get in on the far side up the left of the roof." Amanda touched one strand of the bush. Delicate grainy flowers fell to her hands.

"Yes, I had deduced as much. It is fortunate that you have light. If your environment there has none, it would affect our survival greatly."

"I'm thinking of exploring the exit light on the end of the bushes. There may be another way out."

"Please do no such thing. There is a possibility that this plant may be poisonous," there was a slight soft urgency in his voice. "There is also a big probability that it is full of creatures who consider this cave as their home."

"Can you climb up?" she heard Sarek speak again.

Amanda tried to climb. But the small pebbles rolled down where she stepped with her foot.

"I can't. The pebbles get brushed down."

"Acknowledged. Stay in your current position."

"It's not like I can move to a different location," she muttered.

They used two ropes for the climb for the sake of redundancy. Sarek tied the ropes on his end to a steady rock fissure. He signalled that the ropes were secure, then she began her ascent.

Suddenly, there was the sound of falling rocks and he heard Amanda yelp.

"Sarek, a large rock hit my left leg. I can't use it," said Amanda. She was hanging for her life now. Unable to go up, but not willing to go down. No. Going down was not an option. She held on more firmly to the rope. It started to swing.

She wasn't long before she heard the sound of an abrupt tear and snap. She yelped when her balance went berserk but it steadied back again after the initial chaos.

"Are you alright?" he spoke from above.

"I think I am. The rope broke."

There was only one holding her aloft now. There was a gnawing disturbing sound of a rope slowly breaking in tension. That rope finally broke too. Amanda found herself sliding down for the second time.

"Amanda!" there was a breaking in his voice, as if he was going to shout but stopped himself just in time.

"I'm alright," she called out. "It's like landing on cotton. Except there are rocks with the cotton, so I guess that changes things."

"Stay where you are. I will find more durable vines."

"Be careful!" she called back. But she heard no more reply.

.oOo.

Sarek hurried forward outside the cave after he verified that Amanda was safely placed, albeit injured. He widely looked around him in attempts to find a vine for a makeshift rope. But this part of the forest was ill-suited for such a thing. He will have to travel further out in order to get this desired supply.

Sarek hurried forward after he verified that Amanda was safely placed, albeit injured. He widely looked around him in attempts to find a vine for a makeshift rope. But this part of the forest was ill-suited to acquire such a resource. He will have to travel further South to the wetter regions.

"Amanda, I will have to leave you."

"What do you mean?"

"I need vines with sufficient tension that can bear your weight. I shall lower the food supply. It shall be sufficient to sustain you for three days."

"And you?"

"I will forage what I can on the way."

"No!"

"There is no time to argue this."

"I'm fine. You won't be if I take all the food."

"You will not be also. If I do not get back in time."

"I will be fine, Sarek."

"I insist on this."

The last time she heard Sarek's voice was when he lowered the remaining food to her all opened and ready. Amanda ate it slowly, fighting back a range of emotions she no longer had the energy in identifying.

.oOo.

When Sarek was hiking, he noticed that there was something strangely different. The plain was silent as is as should be. But he seems to get an uncomfortable feeling that it wasn't supposed to be.

There was no more singing. Annoying as it may have been, he has acclimated to the human propensity to soothe discomfort through producing other sounds she insists she calls music. Even though he was hard-pressed to call it as such.

But with Amanda gone, he was also free to stride to his full potential. He never had to lessen his pace for her short human legs. Once again he was left to wonder how humans could be satisfied with how little their bodies can achieve.

This made him remember his particular human that he was endeavouring to get back. And it made his pace quicker. It is not certain that any predator could not smell Amanda in. The bone knitter was with her, upon Sarek's insistence, as he pointed out that she was more vulnerable because she did not know any martial arts. Amanda was not convinced, but even if she wanted to, she could not pull the basket back up. His hope that the band of predators have all been hibernating just like the rest and the game of kill or be killed would be temporarily slowed down for the winter as every one of the battles the cold.

It was a necessary omission. He doubted his martial arts could fight a horde of tiny predators. But he could certainly use fire to his advantage. Fast and strong he may seem now, but he found himself strangely vulnerable with her gone. She was his ally. His friend. His t'hy'la. He made his pace quicker. He was going to get her back. And he was not going to let her be in danger again.

.oOo.

Amanda could hear a faint dripping of water from somewhere. She followed it until she reached a pool, waved the tricorder with it, which Sarek also left behind, the arrogant ass.

The water had some bacteria Amanda was not familiar with, but the tricorder also declared it safe to drink. Every now and then some noise would stir inside the cave and she would become hopeful and call out his name. But there would be no reply except the steady drip-drip of the stalactites to the stalagmites.

She wondered once again if Sarek managed to not get himself killed on his way to find durable vines. If only she was with him, then she could see his body just a few steps ahead, perfectly fine.

What if he couldn't find the vines durable enough to hold her weight? What if she was stuck here? Perhaps forever. Her predictions would have gotten more and more unpleasant had she not noticed a peppermint smell coming from her hand. She noticed that she had been absentmindedly pulverizing the yellow plant in her fingers, and it was now emitting a minty smell on her fingers. She moved her fingers close to her nose.

Then she got the idea of brandishing the tricorder on the yellow plants. Just as she thought. It was edible even when raw. A herb that also contained anti-bacterial properties. She took a few on her hands, made sure from the tricorder that it didn't contain any harmful bacteria, then put it into her mouth. The taste was minty and reminded her of a whiff of honey.

She washed it on the pool and made a dinner out of it. But not before feeling a big weight of guilt at letting Sarek go without any food when there was an abundance here. If only she thought of this sooner, Sarek need not hike on an empty stomach. She tried to comfort herself that Sarek was not as weak as she thinks he is. But was he really? He is not the type of person to admit that he's in discomfort and bleeding. But before she could go further with her analysis, she finally heard the familiar voice that sparked fireworks at the first utterance of the syllables.

"Amanda."

For a moment, she was tongue-tied by this revelation of her body. But she managed to dismiss its reaction as simply relief at being found again.

"Amanda," he repeated. "Are you sufficiently prepared to climb back up?"

"Yes."

"Is your injured leg sufficiently healed?"

"Yes."

But when Amanda looked up again from the hole to which she fell from she spoke again, "Sarek, this part is too dangerous. Rocks fall off. I think it's not solid enough."

"Then we will attempt to protect your head during the climb, we can -"

"Sarek, Sarek, listen to me."

"What are you suggesting? That I leave you here and labour for survival on my own?"

"No. I wouldn't want that."

"It would not be an amenable option to me also."

"At the end of the bushes. There's a light. I'm going to follow this light. See if there's a way out that way."

"Provide me with a description of the climb on the other exit."

"Well, the rocks are solid. There's no danger of any falling debris. But - "

"But?"

"But I think this rock is mossy."

"A fall from that slope will lead to your - "

"Death," Amanda finished. "But so will a rock hitting my head on this other way."

He took a long time to respond. "I concede."

Amanda closed her eyes. "Alright."

"I will attempt to locate the opening on the other side of the cave. I will lower the rope from there," said Sarek.

Amanda looked up at the opening where the sun could get in. The climb up to the top was steep. It was almost a 90 degree straight. It was mossy, and a slip with this damp moss could go way down. It was probably a good idea to wait for Sarek.

She was packing the last vestiges of her belongings and as much of the herb she can carry, when she saw a shadow fell across the light.

"Amanda. Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Sarek, I can hear you," replied Amanda.

They planned her second climb more carefully. Sarek checked every possible weak point in the vines he had chosen, making sure each one of them was reinforced. Three lines of thick rope lowered down. She took the rope in her hand to examine it closer. They will still go with redundancy. One rope breaks, there will be two more to carry her weight. Each rope was thick because it was made up of six other thin ones all intertwined to make it stronger.

The first step she took she felt the soles slipping. But her boots had spikes so it was going to stick better at the very least. As Amanda steadily climbed higher, each heave up was a step closer to salvation.

Amanda looked behind her. The floor of the cave looked far. She must now have been near a third of the length. It was surprising how she got far in just a short time.

"Hold the rope firmly. I shall attempt to pull you up," came Sarek's reply.

There was a nervous whoosh in her stomach when another swing imbalance went through the rope. She felt as if the next swing would shake her off. The rope started to pull up. She used her good leg to not let her body get dragged along the rocks. It took half her strength to half-drag her body.

"Don't put too much friction, Sarek. The vines might not take it. Please go slower," she finally called. It was too fast. Any faster and she felt she might accidentally lose her grip.

Sarek was torn. He could feel Amanda's fear and discomfort through the bond. To go slower would mean more taxing on her expended energy to hold on to the rope. But to go faster would mean she may abruptly fall again. He reluctantly lowered his pace. A balancing act. "Is this speed more amenable to your comfort?"

"Bearable than the last," she groaned.

Sarek pulled meter after meter of the rope, and still, Amanda did not appear. He did not want to spend another agonizing second of Amanda dangling on a rope might suddenly snap. He wanted to pull faster but the knowledge that it might injure her further kept his hand.

Sarek pulled in trepidation as he waited and waited on the entrance for Amanda to appear. When her hand finally appeared among the top of the rocks, he quickly pulled out her hand As if the ground would swallow her back in if he did not get a hold of her.

Amanda felt dizzy from the rough climb that what happened next became blurry and fuzzy. Sarek grabbed her hand and pulled it to engulf her into a tight embrace. He did not waste any time pulling her into his arms. He gripped her firmly as if any loose grip on his part would result in her being dragged away back to oblivion. Her knees shook and fatigue overcame her. Amanda fell to his chest panting. It fell to Sarek to support her weight so she would not collapse to the ground.

Then all of a sudden, he heard Amanda gasp behind him. "Well, would you look at that."

Sarek turned behind him to see what she wanted looked at. The place was full of overgrown branches and twigs. Their leaves were bare, but on the other hand, there were nuts in it. The lovely walnuts that Amanda seem to be longing for. It was her version of Winter Wonderland. It was like a hidden abandoned orchard at the backyard of a house, with the twigs and fallen branches all over the ground and no one to clean it up. Secret from everyone except a few. There was a certain sense of quietness in the place, that when she stepped on a twig, she could hear it crack it loud and clear.

Sarek held the nearest branch. There was ice everywhere that seem to stick out like porcupine needles but he found one walnut inside it, cracked it open with one of his hands, then offered it to her.

"I believe you asked for this."


	4. Starry Starry Night

"The sun is almost setting. Let us make a camp," he told her.

The high rocks provided a degree of shield from the wind. The rocks were solid on either side and sloped outward so that the centre of it was conveniently positioned to provide the most shelter from the wind. Sarek dug a hollow of snow in the corner of the rocks, bearing in mind to stay away from the entrance of the cave where they could fall into the crevice. He then deposited Amanda inside, seeing as she could not walk on her own yet. Sarek took some big leaves, and for the next twenty minutes, Amanda busied herself with arranging it on the floor and the side of the rock to provide some form of insulation. About the only thing she could do since she could not even get up.

After laying her on one corner of the rocks, Sarek immediately set to work. Amanda watched him as he methodically set about his tasks for the night. Dusk was setting and it was imperative they had a fire going when they were in the open. Amanda twirled around her torso to get the twigs she could reach. The twigs were covered in powdery snow so she did her best to shake it off clean before tossing it into the rocks that Sarek prepared for the fire. Before long, a fire was crackling faintly in front of her. She stretched her hands to heat it then put it in her armpits to transfer the heat.

"Aren't we going back to the cave?" asked Amanda.

"There is little point in going back to the other side of the cave when this corner is sheltered enough," replied Sarek. Amanda looked up to the way Sarek came from to cross the other entrance of the cave. It was a steep climb with unstable rocks. Sarek saw where she was looking at and seem to have sensed what she was thinking. "You cannot climb that with an injured leg after nightfall. We will have to find a longer route in the morning." But there was no hurry to go to the other side. There was no danger of starving here. What with all the nuts on the trees.

With the fire attended to, he grabbed the medical kit and proceeded to go to her side.

"Hold still, I will assess the extent of your injuries."

Amanda complied.

She had scratches that ran to her legs and arms. He folded up her cargo pants up, to reveal an ugly gash on her thigh. But the wound ran higher, and his pants needed to be more hiked up. When he came over her thigh, his hand hesitated. His gaze went upwards from the wounds into her eyes. "May I?" he asked.

Amanda blinked. "Oh, yeah, right. Sure."

He folded her pants higher. Then he wiped it with a damp cloth, with soap and water. Sarek fought the urge to remember their tryst two months ago during his Ponn Far, as his hands perilously came close to her undergarments. Even so, he could still touch her sweet skin, and that was a concern on its own. Her wounds had small rocks and dust contaminated in it, and she was herself covered in dust and ash, which in turn made Sarek dirty also.

He took out small pebbles with tweezers, which was also included in the medical kit. After their run-in with different injuries, it was no longer an option to travel without them. He ran the dermal generator up and down it. Until it was pinkish and closed up. Her hand was also injured from gripping too much of the rope. For days it would have to have a gauze to cover it.

When they were finally settled down, a pile of nuts gathered and happily boiling atop their fire, The pile of cracked nuts on Amanda's corner grew higher. Sarek could only stare at her with his mouth slightly open.

"One more please," she pleaded.

Sarek resisted the normal urge to tell her to preserve the rations. He looked around him to see that the forest of trees was unlikely to run out even if she had her fill for the night. They were not going to run out of nuts.

The wind howled above them, but they were clearly out of the action of it. It also helped that there were two people to keep the heat level warm and the hollow was only small. They huddled closer together to preserve the heat.

.oOo.

"Can you put pressure on your injured leg?" said Sarek the next day when the wind had subsided and everything around them was glittering glass of snow.

Amanda got up gingerly and started to flex her muscles. As she did so, a sharp pain struck her. She uttered a small yelp. She was also running a small fever from the injury. But there was no need to tell Sarek that.

What he did next was both endearing and mortifying. He put his hand on her knees and her shoulders then proceeded to carry her as if she only weighted like a child.

"Put me down, I can walk," said Amanda lamely. She was too tired and in too much pain to make a proper case.

"If you consent, I would prefer to carry you much longer."

That comment made Amanda pause. Did he just admit to wanting to hold her? Or was she just reading too much into things?

"I really can pull my own weight."

"You cannot walk in your leg's compromised condition. You must be carried. Furthermore, there is nothing shameful about receiving help," he further admonished. "Your temperature is also running higher than that of an average human."

His altruism was only because of his concern for the survival of their group. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He wanted Amanda well for both of them to survive. It did not mean any more than that. He reminded himself over and over again.

Sarek sensed her finally relaxing in his arms. Finally, she was too tired to argue further.

She was too mortified to speak and she avoided meeting his eyes. When Amanda chanced to look up, he was intently gazing straight ahead. They took the longer route, but it was now away from the jagged rocks of the perilous crossing.

The rock crossing was steep when Amanda saw it from below. But Sarek progressed towards it and he made it look so easy. His steps were surefooted and the rocks that he chose did not crumble beneath him. Perhaps Vulcans have a sixth sense of finding rocks that won't break. Even though most of it was covered in snow. Surefooted, resilient, wise, and long-lived. It reminded her of Tolkien's elves.

When they finally got back to their cave, the immediate feeling of being dirty came to her. She was so covered in dust and soot that she needed nothing short of a bath to clean her up.

"Can you attend to your hygiene without assistance?"

Amanda made a move to sit up straighter. There was so much pain in her left thigh, but she managed to nudge her body with the support of her hands. "Yes, I think so."

Amanda could see he was torn between staying to assist her, and going outside to respect her privacy. In the end, he stood up, "Very well, I shall leave you."

"Sarek!"

"Yes?"

"I don't have any water."

"I shall boil your water and leave you to attend to your hygiene."

"Thank you."

He nodded, then proceeded to put in some snow in his big clay bowl. It simmered heat delightfully that reached Amanda's skin. Snow slowly melted to become precious water.

So much have changed since she was last here. Sarek made bricks to barricade the cave's opening. Then he positioned their fireplace to be part of that barricading wall.

After heating the snow in his relatively big bowl, he let it cool for a while placed it near where Amanda was sitting. He came back again to give her some fresh change of clothes from their extra sleigh supply that they dragged behind them, then finally left for good outside the cave.

She quickly found out standing would be impossible. With great care and a considerable amount of pain, she was able to peel back her pants along with the rest of her clothes to run a damp towel through her body. She was glad she could clean away the dark dust that covered it, along with her bad body-odour smell.

"Amanda," she heard him call after a while. His voice came from behind the rock wall outside. She could see the shadow of his body just behind the wall "Are you finished?"

Amanda fumbled to wipe her body with the towel. She quickly put on her underwear and bra to accommodate his entry.

"It's fine. You can come in now," shouted Amanda.

She heard him shuffle and emerge slowly from the rock.

Her hands were still too tender to be used for picking up food. What followed was the most awkward meal that had happened to them yet. Sarek fed her soup from the rations, his face as placid as ever.

"I am so sorry you have to do this," said Amanda.

"There is no need for an apology for something which you had no jurisdiction or control. Furthermore, shame is an unnecessary emotion from our current situation over trivial things such as these."

When he took another spoonful of the soup, but before he could raise the spoon, she pushed the meal towards him with her injured hand.

"Eat the rest." It was not a request.

After a moment's hesitation and deliberation, he took a seat beside her and ate the rest of the soup. Amanda stared at him as he ate without even realizing that the pack was already empty. He was more hungry than he let on. He proceeded to lick the top and then the insides.

Amanda froze.

"You licked it clean," she said incredulously as if he was committing a crime.

"I have observed that you have done the same for the past occasions. Furthermore, it would be illogical to waste food no matter how small the amount for the sake of propriety. Is there a problem?"

She shook her head. "No. Not at all."

.oOo.

Amanda glanced wistfully at the comfortable corner of the cave where they made their bed. She chose that corner because it was such a perfect space to lay their beds. And it was a little hidden from the cave opening. She was almost sorry to take the bed out of its corner to fold it and bring it with them. It felt like it belonged there. When she folded it up, the place somehow looked different, like she was no longer welcome there. A tinge of sadness hit her. Amanda was sorry to leave their cave, which primitive as it is, began to feel safe as home. The moment she took out the mattress, it ceased to be their home and became just another cave just like the rest. They had to leave some of their things here. Like the big clay pot Sarek made, and the different items Sarek carved to serve as their utensil. From the wood outside. Sarek said he could just make those things back in the pod.

Sarek was already waiting outside when he went back inside the cave. He stooped down on the entrance in order to enter. He was so tall. He was carrying a heavy bag on his own. "Are you ready to leave?"

"Just a moment. I'm finishing this up," replied Amanda.

She gave one last sigh, tightened her bag and met Sarek on the entrance.

After a day's trek, they arrived at the big pod. She collapsed to the cushions like a log and slept the rest of the day. When she woke up, there was that thwacking sound again of Sarek's axe as he made the firewood. She rubbed her eyes to rub off the sleep, immediately feeling guilty for waking up late while Sarek already had so much done. She went out to help with the fire.

"I'm sorry for waking up late," said Amanda.

"Humans need an abundant amount of sleep in order to be functional. Do not apologize for your physiology which you cannot help," said Sarek, in between his axe-cutting.

Amanda noticed that the breeze was a little less sharp than the shard of frost that usually hit her, even though they still woke up to mornings with the ground covered in frosty eggshells that cracked whenever they walked. A first, she thought she was just imagining the lesser cold. But then they started to bear the cold even with using less and less firewood. The sun went to give off a little more warmth albeit still pale.

It was getting warmer. They started wearing less and less layers. Snow began to melt. One morning, Amanda awoke from her good sleep. When she glanced over to Sarek's side of the bed, he was already gone. At first, she thought there was something different. Then she later realized it was because she could no longer hear the steady thwack of Sarek's axe splitting the logs as part of his daily chore. She started to remember that they weren't using the fireplace altogether anymore.

A day came when she finally saw a bit of green on the ground. The wildflowers began to grow. Insects started to fill the empty silence of nighttime. Soon, the grass started sprouting up again until they were as tall as if winter never came.

Amanda got out of the pod one day, and there was no longer a trace of snow. There were small patches of grasses that seemed to have suddenly sprung overnight. But in reality, it has come to grow so gradually, only Amanda noticed them now. She sucked in air. The strong pleasant smell of greenery assaulted her nose. Spring has finally come.

She found Sarek already busy, hunched over a pile of equipment on the ground.

"Hi," she greeted.

Sarek looked up to her from what he was tinkering on the floor, but had to squint his eyes from the direct sun.

"What are you doing?" she went down beside him. Hugging her knees, she looked over them to see the pieces he was currently tweaking on.

"I am attempting to devise a way to collect electricity from the solar panels at the top of the pod," replied Sarek.

"We need that? I hardly noticed. I feel like a cavewoman."

"May I point out that we in fact did live on a cave in an occasion. Your sentence is no longer an analogy. It is the truth," replied Sarek.

"I know. I suppose I am a cavewoman now. I've forgotten what it feels like to use electricity."

"You would be pleased to know your workload for fetching water will be reduced by one-fifth. When this is done, we can utilize the sonic shower for at most once a week."

She was quite surprised and in awe of how he managed to make tangible electricity from those black objects. When Sarek tried to explain it to her, she began to understand that it was actually quite simple. She knew how it worked by principle, but had she been alone, she would not have managed to do it.

"The principle is quite elementary. The main power's charging unit is through this input area. After that, it is only a matter of letting the electrons travel through ideal mediums, to another medium that can store such electrons," said Sarek. Noticing Amanda's raised spirits, he added. "It is illogical for you to have your hopes up over an increase of probability by the measure of 0.74%. There are other factors that could impede our escape such as system malfunction before it charges enough to give us power. Accounting to factors such as our current food supply and resources, the final probability of us escaping orbit would only be 24.7 percent."

When Sarek did come back inside, he began to tell her about his plans for more work. There was much to be done. There was the food supply to gather, sheets to wash, and new outhouse to rebuild since the last one was ruined by the blizzard. Amanda's heart sank. She had thought the arrival of spring would mean she can finally have a bit of rest from the harsh cold. But it seemed to have heralded just another set of work to do.

Sarek started his task in making clay bowls for cooking. Amanda gathered grass then dried them in the sun to make a softer cushion for their bed. Then she put some sheets on top of it. She made two beds, one for Sarek, and one for her.

Then there was a lot of washing up and cleaning. When she was not wiping every inch of their pod glassy clean after it was swaddled in mud and dirt from all the storms, she was down on the river to wash their clothes. She hauled their sheets and clothes through the creek. Then washed them and put them on top of the grass to dry. And that was only when she could catch a break from foraging more food.

One day, she returned to the camp carrying something in her loot basket. She smiled as if she just found gold. It was better.

"I found wild berries!" she exclaimed. "Are you hungry?"

Yes. He was hungry. They have been extending their food supplies once the winter had set in. Fortunately for them, they found a box of wild wheat they managed to look over during winter. They had eaten those for days. But now they had wild berries.

Sarek helped her wash it with their water and they sat at once to eat it. The outside of the berries looked normal. But when they took a bite, the stain flowed so freely and abundant they could probably use it as a dye. Amanda did not expect the stain to be strong. After just a few of it, their hands were already sticky and purple with stain. She was so engrossed in eating this little treat that she forgot to be careful. Some of the stains got in her clothes.

"Listen, don't throw away the seeds. I've this crazy idea of planting plenty of it near our pod," said Amanda. She suggested they cultivate the ground. It might yield crops after just two months. Then they could stock it to provide food for weeks. They never have to have problems with food for a good long while anymore. Just thinking about producing a huge supply of surplus made Amanda overwhelmingly happy.

"You will need a fence to protect it from the local fauna. I will see to it at once," he stood up and went inside the pod to get the laser-cutter. He must have liked the berries more than he cared to admit. Amanda followed closely behind him.

After a short walk, they both stood facing a piece of land wide enough to be planted on. It was a little bit away from their home-pod, but relatively near the river. The ground had to be cultivated to prepare the seeds. The perimeter had to be fenced to stop the local fauna from devouring it. In the end they decided to plant both the wild wheat and the berries. For the next days, Sarek was then busy cultivating it to prepare for the soft kernels they would deposit for harvest. While Amanda dug for the irrigation.

Walking a bit further away from their pod, Amanda found more wild wheat growing in the fields. For several days, she was busy cutting it up with her machete and laying it in the sun to dry, all the time looking forward to the end of the wheat's preparation when she can finally bake it into a cake. They had wild berries. And wild berries with grounded wheat would make a good cake. It would be as if they were back on civilization again. She began grounding the wild wheat into fine pieces. Next, she mixed it with the white root until it was dough-like, then put it in the fire to bake.

The resulting cake had cracks, but it still held relatively structurally solid. Much like their survival on this planet and their food supply, she mused with a laugh. She put a generous amount of berries on top of it. The smoke from the wood coal made her hands ashy, and she accidentally wiped her forehead with it. This simple meal was hard gruelling work. But she can't deny there was a certain satisfaction in producing her own cake from her own labour.

For the first time in their stay at Arg-117P, she felt that she was thriving instead of just surviving. It was no longer winter with the blunt cold knives assaulting her skin. The sun was soft and warm, and the plains were grassy enough. It's amazing how adequate food made the difference between Arg-117p being idyllic instead of it being a murder rock.

She put pulps of the sweet fruit in a pitcher, then wrapped her wheat-cake in cloth to keep it clean. Carrying her simple treats, she strode over to where Sarek who was busy tilling the land.

"I have our food. Are you hungry?" she said.

Sarek nodded and put down the shovel he'd been using to cultivate the small piece of land. She laid a big cloth on the ground and sat on it, inviting him to do the same.

"Here, let's eat," she poured him a glass and opened the cloth to reveal her makeshift wild wheat cake. "Here's your knife and fork. And I've wrapped the cake in cloth for you. I know you don't care about touching your food with your bare hands."

He looked at her offered food for a while.

"Is something wrong?"

"In our home planet, only an Aduna is allowed to serve a mate."

Amanda gasped and made to withdraw the offer in order to put it on the ground. "I'm sorry. I should be sensitive to your culture enough to see you weren't comfortable."

But Sarek extended his hands to accept the food. He tilted his head for a fraction in acknowledgement. He told her, "I am obliged to you," then started eating his share.

"What do you think about making new traditions?"

He tilted the canteen to his mouth and drank. "Perhaps it's time to build our own culture."

The early spring sun was a soft friend so they were able to partake their meal in the field. They ate in companionable silence. They went under a tree with a generous cool shade. Amanda laid a cloth over the thick blade of grass. The grass was thick and soft. They sat comfortably above it.

Amanda observed Sarek out of the corner of her eye and noticed he ate slightly faster than he normally would. Not the person he once observed tying his best to eat with decorum when he was hungry, but as a person who derived satisfaction from eating his meal with ease on a cool midday sun. She suppressed the feeling of triumph on her face at her successful meal.

.oOo.

Their little garden kept Amanda busy. While he built the encompassing fence around it. They worked each to their own. Oftentimes he would call to her for help in holding the piece of wood. She held one end of the wood so he could drive perfect holes into it with the laser-cutter. Every time he turned it on, there was that gnawing fear that it wouldn't work anymore and they reached the end of its juice.

He took a thin long wood and hammered it into the holes, firmly keeping the two planks in place. It fit perfectly like a puzzle. That had Amanda wondering once again what other kinds of buildings could be built without nails.

When the first sign of roots shot up, she smiled at them and elected to call them "darlings". Treating inanimate objects as beings were, of course, illogical, but Sarek held his tongue to not risk of offending her emotional sensibilities.

That night, Amanda took a soup ration pack from their store and tossed wild grains as it heated up. Nowadays they were only taking the last of the rations once in a while as a form of delicacy. She also added a bit of the leftover white roots that started to appear again on the ground. The result was amazing. The white root that was otherwise unpalatable on its own because of its blandness, blended well with the taste of the soup. Furthermore, the wild wheat seems to have starch-like qualities that made the soup thicker. She divided it in half and offered it to Sarek in a wooden bowl he carved out of a tree log. After the first spoon, Sarek suddenly paused. Alarmed, Amanda inquired again what was wrong.

"The taste of this soup has a small degree of resemblance to the Plomeek served at my home planet," he replied.

"Is it good?" said Amanda, not sure if she was inquiring of the taste of Plomeek soup or her own that she made.

"Yes."

They ate in silence for a while. The fire crackled through their tensioned space.

"What other food have you eaten? I hope I'm not being too impertinent," said Amanda cautiously.

"Your questions have ceased to be impertinent. I have learned to manage," Sarek didn't know it yet, but when he gets back to Vulcan, he would seek it like a human in cold winter longing for the warmth of Spring.

"You mean to endure," retorted Amanda.

Sarek laid his empty bowl to the side and spoke again. "My profession being an Ambassador required that I travel to different sectors. I have tasted a variety of local cuisines in the duration of these travels," Sarek finally said.

Amanda looked up at the sky. The night was clear and the stars in Arg-117p were much bigger and clearer than they were on earth. "My father once told me, all the stars that I see in the sky are all big and separate star systems. He said he wanted to visit each one of them to see the new surprises each star contained."

"Your father is a pioneering man."

Sarek told her to pick a star. Then he tweaked the tricorder, pushing it to unconventional use, he would coordinate the location point and tell her the name of that star system. For every single light that she saw in the night sky was a star system, although some of them may not support life. She hoped that the star system she picked would be a lucky pick. Although there was no way of knowing if it held life. Long-range sensors were not that powerful enough to scan for life-forms. That was what exploration vessels such as the Enterprise were for.

They didn't have the time to look at them all, so she said: "the second star to the right, straight on till morning".

This earned her a raised eyebrow in inquiry "What is the meaning of this another idiomatic sentence?"

She told him about the human legend of a planet on the second star where a child named "Peter Pan" resided. He could fly, so he took three pre-warp human children away from earth to his planet. And how they travelled the whole night straight on and arrived on the planet in the morning.

Amanda saw Sarek press his lips slightly together. "It would have been unethical under federation laws to get three underaged pre-warp children who still cannot give proper consent," Sarek replied.

"But you do know, do you? That Earth literature is full of stories of pre-warp children taken into a different planet?"

Sarek told her post-warp civilization oftentimes take children from pre-warp worlds to their own worlds because they are still too young to be believed but following the founding of the Federation, this action was now made illegal.

He told her about different galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy where it was reported to have more advanced technology than their own Milky Way. He told her of his knowledge of the vast cosmos. In return, Amanda told him about the stories of Earth visiting strange new worlds.

According to the stories, when the Earth was new and there were usually chinks and chasms in caves, connecting this world to another. That was why a girl from World War II was able to enter a Wardrobe to find herself in a new world where it was "always winter and never Christmas." She grew to be an adult there but when she came back, she was just a child again as if no time had passed.

Sarek explained that it was possible because radio-active elements of early earth that have not yet decomposed has time-dilation properties. He also explained the concepts behind temporal theory. Amanda's head hurt and she sheepishly admitted she had failing grades in temporal physics. All those charts crisscrossing to reveal the current time. Only to be told that there was no such thing as a now. That everything was just temporary. It was a haywire thing to map something twenty-one Dimensional to their three-dimensional holos. There were so many derivatives.

Sarek said time was more like following a thread closely. When it bent a corner and you could find its next location on a different planet, the equation could still follow it as long as one is careful to put the right variables.

Something caught Amanda's eye which immediately led her to exclaim, "Oh, look! A shooting star. We can make a wish." She immediately cringed after she said this. It was such a casual thing to say when one sees a shooting star she quite forgot she was talking to a Vulcan.

"That is not a star," Sarek replied calmly. "That is a meteor hitting the planet's atmosphere."

Amanda was about to explain another set of human terms when she decided to keep her mouth shut. It was enough lessons on illogical human culture in a day. "Right now, I just want to go back to my own star. I don't even know where it is," Amanda sighed.

Sarek set his empty soup aside then stood up. He held out his hand. "Come. Let me show you." She took his outstretched hand. He stood behind her and slowly moved his hands lower to hers, slowly slipping his forefingers into position with hers. He gripped it so only their forefingers were pointing. Then, making sure their eyesight is at the level, he directed her hand up to the sky. He put his other hand on her shoulders. He guided her shoulders with his other hand in a similar direction. "That is your solar system."

"How do you know?" said Amanda, suddenly breathless, suddenly very conscious that he was right behind her and that she could feel his breath on the side of her ear. She wanted to look behind her to see a glimpse of his face but she suddenly felt very shy in his presence.

"The trajectory of this land is 54.7 degrees from its axis. Since this is now nighttime it could only mean we are in position 004-mark-253. Earth would be to your far-right bearing 016-mark-200. Judging by the energy of your star, amount of light fluctuation it can produce at this distance, this star there would be yours," said Sarek, keeping his voice low because he was closer to her ears.

"Are you sure?" Amanda whispered back, it seemed that her breath was catching.

"Yes. I am certain." Amanda smiled faintly. Her star twinkled faintly the same as all the others. But she immediately saw it differently. It was the star where she belonged.

"What about you?" she looked up behind her to meet his eye. "Where is your home star?"

Sarek directed both their hands to another part of the sky. "Do you see those three stars?"

"Yes," she said, keenly aware that he was quietly speaking behind her. His breath formed fog when he speaks. There was fog forming around them. Sarek's closer body and his hand holding hers to point to the sky was offering a comforting warmth.

"The 40 Eridani system has three stars that circle each other. My stars are 16.5 light-years away from your solar system."

Amanda looked hard at the three seemingly simple dots on that part of the sky. It was a marvel to think that behind those simple dots lay a whole planet teeming with life.

"Fascinating," said Amanda, adapting his parlance. "When you finally go home to your star, I'll know where to find you in the night sky. Your stars are not easy to miss. Three little dots glowing around almost as one, dancing with each other. Like dancing kindred spirits."

Sarek didn't reply. But Amanda was already comfortable with their silence. Maybe he didn't care so much about her metaphysical descriptions of celestial bodies. It was silly of her to call such a big ball of gasses of hard science as dancing kindred spirits.

Amanda thought he was not going to say anything anymore. Then suddenly, his soft voice broke the silence. "We have no high-powered telescope here. But when we go back to civilization," he finally spoke quietly. "I will take you to an observatory. You will see our star system circle in harmony. Like a great dance of celestial beings."

It was such a simple statement. But Amanda felt as if she saw a bit of Sarek inside his solid walls. It was clear that he liked astronomy, even though he continually said he had no likes and dislikes, he had preferences. He was an astrophysicist after all. "Really?" she whispered.

"Must you always ask me to re-affirm facts which I already stated?"

"Alright. Pinky swear," she turned and held out her pinky finger in front of him. Sarek look at it confused. He did not know what to do with it.

"What are you attempting to achieve?"

"Oh. This is a human tradition. You hold out your last finger like this so, " she took his pinky finger "And intertwine it with mine as a sign. After making this sign, you must do what you promised to this person."

"Is it a binding contract?"

"A promise. As binding as friendship. The agreements can range from small to big things."

"Yes, I am familiar with contract agreements."

"Yes, you are."

So Sarek held out his last finger but did not touch it to hers.

She closed her eyes as the unasked for but not stopped _ozh'esta_ took hold between the least of their fingers. The horizon paled as the light of dawn started to appear. Nobody had noticed the time. They had been talking so long. The air was cool and crisp. The dragonettes started singing.


	5. The Undisturbed Terrain

Another pod landed just over their heads then veered right until it disappeared in the horizon. They immediately packed their bags and started their journey to the direction of the pod.

Today, as they walked, the soft spring sun was just enough to warm their skin. It was a pleasant walk. Very much different from their last winter trek when everything had been icy cold. Redwoods started to appear in their surroundings. Streams were also abundant so they didn't have a hard time with water. It was amazing how a pack of good ration food and good rest could make a journey pleasant.

Amanda went forward to the nearest red tree. She was doing something in front of the tree, but Sarek could not see what it was. He could only see her back. Curious, he went to her to inspect.

"'Amanda and Sarek were here. xoxo'," Sarek read the carvings on the tree with a flat voice. He turned to look at her hands. "You have blunted your pen-knife," he further admonished.

"Just leaving a little souvenir."

"Interesting. This is a testament. A piece of evidence to corroborate our story that we have been here. For when we go back, they may not find our words sufficient."

"..." Amanda hadn't intended it that way, but she was shutting her mouth on this one.

He further examined the writing, "Is this a routinary practice among humans when they visit a new environment?"

"Well, ye-es?"

"You are unsure."

He was sure it was a statement, not a question. "I'm sorry, it's been done so casually, I hadn't noticed it was now probably a practice. It was done for fun than for a purpose."

"I now understand why Humans have advanced much in a short period. They have this set of thought patterns that can produce the most unique solutions out of the common algorithms. But I am curious, what is the meaning of the carvings, 'xoxo'? I'm afraid I do not recognize it. Is it Standard? Ancient Runes? Andorian letters?"

Amanda laughed so hard she was already clutching her stomach. She went past him, but not before patting his head lightly and saying, "look it up, big boy." She was a good deal walking happier after that.

Presently they came into a forest with great oaks. It was a warm day which made you think about sleeping under the shade of the trees, with the trees providing a cool shade from the direct heat. The oaks were bigger grandfather trees and the leaves above were huge so only a few slits of sunlight got inside, straight-shooting to the ground from the roof of leaves and branches. The undergrowth was full of soft wet leaves, her boot sunk into it when she stepped.

An insect flew as a helicopter and hovered close to her shoulder. "Ow, ow, get it away! Get it away!" She exclaimed. It landed on the floor and never moved again. Smitten by her conscience that she had killed it, she prodded it with a stick.

Sarek was behind her with his litany, "Amanda, it is illogical to feel responsible for the death of this being. You acted on self-defence. The insect may have had poisons that could have killed you."

"Why look at this, it's nothing but a leaf." She examined the thing closely and discovered it was only two orange-coloured leaves popping out from one stem forming an intertwined circle that started small at the bottom and grew large and less hard as it shot to the top.

"I see," said Sarek picking it up from the ground and examining it. It was thicker than a normal leaf. "Its leaves are intertwined. Its widening surface area coupled with its tight design makes the air-resistance propel it to spin very fast," he observed, putting the object close to his eyes.

Up above her, more were dropping from the tree. But instead of dropping like a normal leaf, they descended in a wide arc of varying sizes depending on the width of their leaves which made their descent slower and more graceful. The forest was full of them. Amanda wanted to catch one.

They glided down with grace and elegance of dancing ballerinas. She held out her hand but the leaves had no intention of falling into her palm. They veered away whenever she thought they would already almost land in her hand. In the end, she did catch one.

"Look, Sarek!" So Sarek looked into her hand.

"It's not just a leaf, it's a seed," said Amanda.

"Indeed it is," said Sarek. On the very end of the circling leaves was a seed about the third size of his thumb.

"I'm going to keep it."

"Have you checked if this is legal? The agricultural quarantine restricts the entry of animal, fish or plant products. Failure to obtain such permit with corresponding health sanitary or phytosanitary certificate may result in seizure of aforementioned items."

"You sound like a Government database. But you also said 'may'."

"I am merely pointing out that-"

"Oh look! The seeds are edible!" said Amanda, looking over the beep of the tricorder. "I guess we're having Calcium..., Iron ...and Magnesium tonight. No poison too." she read the output.

And that ended the dispute. Sarek let her pick as much of the seeds as possible without any more objections or demand that she produce certifications. It was good to know Sarek would drop being legalistic when it was already a matter of survival. She stuffed her bag with it. And when there wasn't any more space, she stuffed his bag with it. And when she still found them she picked it up then stuffed the pockets of her fatigue pants, then his fatigue pants. Then after boiling some, munched it along the way.

By nightfall, they started to notice something different. The falling Dancing Ballerinas gave off a faint glow. Ballerinas that were already fallen to the ground also glowed. Amanda wanted to take some to their pod but she found out it was not the leaves that were glowing. It was an insect inside the centre of each. A firefly.

They walked a bit more and the glowing Ballerinas seemed to get more numerous as they continued forward. It came to a point that she was careful not to step on any of them. They were precious little things. She couldn't bear ending the light of even one. Beside her, Sarek was also doing the same.

She could see the fireflies up trees, crowding over a big pulp that looked like fruit. Pulps hanging on the trees was about the size of her hand. Then something unexpected happened. A seed fell away from the main pulp, and as soon as it caught air, it started to spin and dance fast. It must have been that when the pulp starts to soften, that was when the seeds fall to become Dancing Ballerinas. One by one, they would break away from the large main pulp seed, then fall gracefully to the ground.

"Woah," Amanda stopped on her tracks. Up above her, the whole oak tree was filled with fireflies. They have found their nest. They were flying all over the place like little faeries living in a tree. It gave the great oak a faint glow. Especially if you were directly below it and peeking upon its branches. The little dots of light looked like pixie dust ready to sprinkle on them.

"Fascinating," said Sarek, looking up.

She went forward to hold her hand above them, not to capture, but to revel in their beauty.

Sarek looked at her glowing face and was struck by a realization that she was still quite young. Very much far away from him in age. Still in the stage where she was still fascinated by the stimulants and the sensations simply by her surroundings. He was struck with a longing to protect and not break this jewel. But he knew that time would come and pound it more to see if it still stands.

She couldn't quite resist the temptation of putting her hand on a branch full of thick glowing fireflies. She gave a soft laugh when they scattered above her hands, then settled back down to the side of the branch again.

"Like little faerie angels."

Sarek raised an eyebrow and looked sideways to her. "You are aware that fireflies light in order to attract a mate?"

Her smile faded to a mock-frown chuckle. "Unbelievable."

"What is?"

"The fact that I was enjoying a beautiful moment and you just have to tell me an infodump on mating. Now all I can think of calling them is horny bugs instead of faerie angels."

"I do not understand why you have to cease calling them faerie angels just because they mate."

Amanda opened her mouth to give him a good reason. Then closed it again because she couldn't find one. She smiled serenely up to him. "Faerie Angels it is."

They decided to camp there for the night; underneath the glowing oak tree. They boiled more of the seeds for their dinner.

Next day brought them to terrain with lesser trees. The ground started to have soft grass until they came to a glade that was full of it. The kind that would want you to go barefoot with its bed-like softness. So Amanda said so, but Sarek wouldn't hear of it. The grass was dangerous and she might step on a poisonous bug. Later on, the ground started to get watery and she was glad Sarek told her to keep her boots on.

.oOo.

Amanda should have known better. The fireflies last night would have been enough indication that they were near some wetland. She should have already known it when the ground beneath them started to be watery then mossy until it was only their feet that broke the surface moss that wrapped the water surface like a blanket. Or when they saw an abundant supply of blackberries that were just waiting to be picked.

"Marshes."

"Can't we go around it?" said Amanda.

Sarek shook his head. "The tricorder states this type of terrain is 45 hectares wide. There is no other option but to cross it."

The last time they were here to retrieve the third landing pod. it was during the winter and the bogs were frozen solid, with a thick layer of snow on top of it. It had been an easy flat hike and their enemy was the perilous frost and the unforgiving white. Now it was a different terrain they had to navigate and fight.

They had to go back to the oak trees to make a canoe. The trees in their current position were too thin with the roots spreading all over the blanket-covered moss water.

They went back to the great oak trees. He tapped them to see if it was hard enough. They scrutinized the body if it was wide enough. When he was finally satisfied with his choice of the tree (not the firefly nest), he took out the laser cutter and set about his work.

First, he cut the tree to make a big log. Then they both cleared the bark out to make it smooth. He flattened the top up and shaped the sides narrower. It was to make the canoe aero-dynamic. Next, he carved out the canoe's inside from the flat top. They only made one oar. They decided to take turns in using it, so the other could shout directions.

Very soon they were pushing it on the start of the water.

Sarek told her to sit behind him because "Females are always behind males in Vulcan."

Amanda would have made a fuss at this but he added, "It is for your protection. This is an unfamiliar terrain. If a predator happens to pass, it would have to go through me first before it reaches you."

"Isn't that unfair for you?"

Sarek's shoulders rose and went down as if in a shrug. "It has been how my people have done it. A female can survive without a male. But a male cannot survive without a female. It was, therefore, logical to put the males on the front line because if the female is in the front, both of them will die by defacto. Furthermore, I have combat skills and higher body mass. I will be harder to bring down if there is a predator waiting to ambush us for food."

"I suppose so. But all the same, be careful alright? I don't want you to die."

"I shall do my best to comply with your request."

They oared forward in silence, the boat and their oar, the only one disturbing the lonely curtain moss on the water. The trees became bigger and bolder until roots were so high up that their canoe had no trouble passing below. For a long time, it was all weeds and moss and great mangrove trees, with an occasional lily on the grass-moss.

Some of the trees were all covered in in mosses. In the low covered sun, it was giving off a faint glow. And all those times, there was a steady drip-drip of lake water from somewhere.

Presently they came upon an alligator eating a huge turtle. They saw it cut through the turtle's shell-like cheese, then munch it off piece by piece. After it was done eating, the alligator then went to regard them with uninterest. She shivered.

"Perhaps that was for the best. Had it not eaten that turtle, it might have found us as meals."

"Poor turtle."

They rowed again. For some reason, they whispered when talking.

"Sarek?" Amanda whispered.

"Yes, Amanda,"

"This place seems a little bit strange, don't you think? As if the place doesn't want to be disturbed and we're intruders."

"What part of this whole excursion seem strange to you?"

Before she could reply, their boat struck something solid. It was apparent that the water was now so low they could go no further. Sarek snapped a sturdy vine with his hands from a nearby tree as if it was paper. Then he tied the canoe to one of the sturdy trees. They walked a few more paces. The watery ground turned into steadier soil. Eventually, they arrived at the place where the trees came to a full stop. He looked down below him. It was no longer soil. It was sand. He blinked at the warm sunlight. They were out of the woods.

Amanda let out a gasp. "We're here. We're finally here," she said.

Yes, they were. The pod was a few paces away from them with ample food supply. But instead of going inside, Amanda went past the shuttle pod and went instead into the open sea. There were big rocks here and there. And there was a slab of land that seems to still be shallow even for miles. She was laughing.

The water was as smooth as glass and as clear as jelly. It had a blue shade on it against the white sand. If you look hard enough, you can almost see a trace of green in the water. It was almost a pity to step on it. But when she took off her shoes and dipped her feet on the perfect water, she didn't feel sorry at all. She sighed when the watery sand made contact with the skin on her feet. At first, she kept to the shallows. And when she ventured deeper she would fold her pants higher. A few more steps into the water she finally stopped. Casting a furtive glance at his direction, she went back into the dry sand and started taking off her shirt.

Sarek gulped. Probably for practical purposes. Her clothes would get wet in the water if she wore them. It was logical to remove them before swimming, said the coherent part of his brain.

She hesitated for a bit, then wiggled off her fatigue pants as well. Soon she was running and twirling and wading the shallow waters with nothing but her underthings. Orange underthings.

Fresh white ripples met her feet. She seemed to get genuine pleasure from simply tripping on the shallow lines. Humans. There were a lot of cultural seminars about them that warned him they were always this vivacious, unpredictable, extensive passion. But it was the first time he had observed one in this proximity for a large period of time. Perhaps it would be beneficial to conduct observatory research...

Amanda squinted and shielded her eyes when she gazed up into the sky. The sun was so hot there was nowhere in the sky safe to look at. Her eyes went back to his direction. Is she finally going to acknowledge his existence?

"Sarek?" said Amanda, going near him. "Won't you come?" she said. She gently went back to the shallow waters. Sarek felt like he was being pulled along with her.

"Take off your shoes," she instructed. He didn't know why he had obeyed her. But he found himself putting his shoes on the dry sand next to her clothes and heading the water with her.

She was right. The lapping of the water on his feet was comforting. He found himself looking at the gentle ripples on the clear water for a long time. Contrary to his expectations, the sand and the water was not cold as water should be. It was warm.

"Come deeper," said Amanda. "Do you want to take off your clothes?"

Sarek shook his head.

"Alright then, let's just hope the pod has some extra clothes for you."

Shouldn't he go and check first before continuing in this excursion? But if he leaves now, he might not come back. And very soon they were already waist-deep in the water.

"There you go. Water wasn't so bad now is it?" She stepped back from him and let herself fall back to the water.

"Amanda. Perhaps you should not venture too far."

"Don't worry, it isn't that deep yet," said Amanda, doing a back-stroke. "Do you know how to swim?"

"The environment which I resided had not provided me with many opportunities."

Amanda suddenly stood up and shielded the sun in front of him. "Do you want to learn how to swim?"

"I believe that is preferable to drowning," replied Sarek.

"That settles it then. I'll teach you," she said. "If you'd want of course."

She proceeded to teach him how to swim. First one was what she called 'float'. "Just lie on the water as if it was a comfortable bed. The more you panic, the more you'll sink," were her instructions.

'The more you panic, the more you sink' was an easy concept to be understood in the Vulcan culture. Her hands were below his back, preventing him from falling. When she was convinced he was visibly relaxed, she withdrew her hand.

Then she finally lay on beside him on the water to stretch her hands and feet. She let out an audible sigh that came off as a moan.

"Finally getting my money's worth for that cruise trip," she said.

While she was doing butterfly strokes while floating, she inadvertently slightly brushed Sarek's finger.

"What do you think of it?" said Amanda.

"It is acceptable," replied Sarek.

"Acceptable? You like it?"

"It is an acceptable survival skill if I ever find myself thrown into a body of water."

After a while, the sun sunk lower. Sarek rose from the water and began the preparations for making camp outside the escape pod.

Amanda looked to his direction to see him making short of the firewood on the seaside. She decided that for once, she wasn't going to get out of the water yet. Not just yet. Just a little while longer.

.oOo.

The fire cackled contentedly on the beach. They dug a sufficient hole in the ground and laid some big stones over it, feeding the fire below with dead twigs and dried ate a full meal each from the pod rations. And dried their wet clothes near the fire by sticks they erected.

"It's so c..c..cold," said Amanda. Her lips were turning a shade of purple. Her skin was itchy and she was a degree colder than usual. But her heart was full.

Sarek put more firewood in the fire. "That is the natural consequence of swimming until the sun is already down." He handed her a ration.

"You're not eating a ration," observed Amanda.

"No, I am not."

"Why?" she asked again.

"You have lost an adequate amount of heat from your water excursion after the sun was no longer present and therefore in need of warm sustenance to ward off hypothermia. I, on the other hand, was largely unaffected because I rose from the water earlier. It is therefore logical that I consume our abundant resource of berries to make the rations last longer."

"I shouldn't be eating this."

"You should," he replied. "If you are not adequately warm, we will encounter more problems that can drain our resources."

"I'm sorry for setting you back and being a burden."

He handed her a mushroom on a stick. When she raised her eyebrows questioningly, he replied "It is logical to consume all our perishable food items. We can only carry an optimum of 10.6 kilograms on the way back."

They sat back in silence. It was a clear night. They could see the milky way skewed in a different shape but otherwise present and gleaming above them. Like a guardian. It was bigger, brighter and vividly clearer, right from the plump of the centre, down to its very tail trailing along the horizon. It was so much better than seeing it in a high-powered telescope. It was also somehow colder.

.oOo.

Gosh faeriemagic07, stop trying to make Vumans happen! It's not gonna happen.

Well fine. No more news about hot bi-racial Vumans.

P. S. Vumans would like to thank you for being interested in their history and culture.


	6. The Sea of Lights

Author's warning: Don't do what Amanda did unless you're a swimmer, you already know the currents, and/or you're in a survival situation on which you could die if you do or don't do it anyway, thereby making the risk logical.

DON'T DO THIS AT HOME. I mean outside your home, on the beach, yeah you get my point.

.oOo.

Sarek woke up the next day and immediately noticed how different the smell of salt air was like. Instinctively looking beside him, he could see that Amanda was no longer in her makeshift bed. Getting out of the pod, he looked around the beach. It was still dark and icy outside. There was no smell of moss or earth here, unlike inside their cave or even a trace of it in their pod, which was near the muddy banks of a river. It was all the salt of the sea.

The shore was very different now that it was low-tide. Instead of the water near the beach easy to reach and to swim, what stretched before him was a vast array of sand from them that only had small pools of water. You had to walk all the way forward in order to just have a proper swim. Because up ahead for stretched for a mile, there were only pools of small water not deeper than his knees. Then more sand. He could hear the gentle swish of the water from far off but it was more of a murmur no larger than a soft string from this distance, you could easily miss it if you tried.

In the dim light of the dawn, there was a far off lone figure in the wet shore stooping down and picking things up in her satchel. She stopped her activity when she saw him standing outside the pod and waved her hands in greeting. He could not properly see her face because of the dim light but he knew she was radiantly smiling.

The drained water has its advantages, he could clearly see. The algae beneath the water, along with other items that might prove useful was now easily visible and accessible. Clearly, Amanda could see this too as she was currently gathering it right now for their dinner.

There were, of course, a lot of thriving living things in the seawater. Non-vegetarians, they would have lived here well-fed for the rest of their lives. But the fact was they were, and so they shall only gather the weed-like plants on the rocky part of the beach.

He came over some bluish rocks in clumps, some were scattered, some were grouped into one big pile. But after much inspection, found out nothing was growing out of it that way by any chance, edible. This was strange since all the rocks they encountered at the beach so far had living things thriving around them. These rocks were too organized in the sand for it to be made by the waves. He concluded it must have been the doing of more type creatures that left behind such clump pellets, which over time, sometimes slowly scattered about its surroundings, while other piles remained intact. He unconsciously prodded one rock back to the clump with his feet. Order was preferable to chaos.

He walked towards her carrying a satchel of his own, his feet getting immediately wet and dirty because of the damp sand. He could see Amanda now, on the edge of some very large rocks. She was cutting the weeds in their stems methodically using a pen-knife. The tricorder scanned it and said it did not contain any toxins. They were quietly gathering their food for a while when he heard Amanda yelp near him.

"What is it?" he said.

"Nothing. I thought that huge rock near the water was moving, but It was probably just the trick of the dim light."

Sarek went beside her to examine where she was pointing.

"It's really moving, Sarek," she backed her heels away from the moving rock and smacked right into Sarek's chest. He held her arms to keep her from falling. He saw that it was a rock-like creature emerging from one of the big pools of water moving towards the dry sand at a slow pace. It could have been a Terran turtle, except that its tusks could easily be mistaken for the rough texture of a large rock. He had not noticed its black shining eyes unlike the rest of its body until now. It was a very convenient camouflage.

But her curiosity and the animal's slow movements finally got the better of her and she approached it for closer inspection. When it saw Amanda approach, it slowly retreated back and disappeared back into the nearby pool of water. Sarek put his forefinger in front of his mouth to tell her to be silent. They hid behind a large rock and peered through it. The silence coaxed the creature forward again. It went to an area with a generous amount of dry sand and burrowed deep into it. Rocks started coming out of it, and Amanda thought at first that it was shedding, or else excrement. But she noticed the shape of the little rocks and it looked like more of an egg than skin-shed. The rock-creature went away to the direction of the open sea and they were left to look at the pile of bluish rocks on the sand- a pile of rocks not dissimilar to the one he had encountered earlier.

Amanda laid herself near the pile of freshly made blue rock eggs and looked at it with new wonder. "Well, that finally solved one of the mysteries. Back in the days people see arranged rock-forms, they would immediately assume it was aliens who did them."

Sarek followed suit and sat beside the pile of rocks with his legs folded. "Why have they thought first to investigate on their own creature indigenous to their own planet before entertaining such a hypothesis?"

"You know humans, we never were logical," said Amanda, her head resting on the back of her hands and her legs waving her legs to the air. Her legs offered him a perfect view of her figure. He did his best not to look at it since it stirred up emotions in him that he would rather not encounter.

When they observed the rocks closer, she finally noticed that it was moving too. The parts where she mistook as rough rocks, were actually small hands and feet, crawling its way.

"Maybe they were the same composition as rocks and in that very sense, they are rocks, after all, only alive ones."

"We will have to rely on basic taxonomy in order to qualify their species," Sarek logically replied.

She took out her tricorder and analyzed its composition, and the tricorder verified her suspicion. It was the same composition as rocks.

"Is something the matter?" asked Sarek.

"Nothing, It's shocking at first but once I get used to the idea of their skin texture looking and feeling like rocks, I think it would seem to be the most natural thing to see in this world."

She had a hard time finding others but Sarek told her to look for snake-like trails on the ground. He would find them faster. His eyes were trained to see snake trails in the desert sand in order to distance himself away from poisonous creatures. But Amanda was now trying to trace it to go near them instead. At first, Amanda couldn't see any difference on the sand. But when she focused hard, she could see the outline of some trail that Sarek was talking about. She'd trace the path and lo and behold, there would be a rock-creature at the end of it. But sometimes, she would trace the other direction of the snake-path and if that happened, the path just disappeared in the sand. Probably covered up with time, or end up back at the base clump of stones.

They continued searching for exposed seaweeds on rocks, when Sarek noticed the shore near him to be full of seaweeds, separated only by a small body of water, much like the other small pools. The other side had a lot more rocks in its sands which made the seaweeds hang on them like curtains. He only needed to cross a small amount of water approximately five meters to go to the other side. He did so, judging the body of water to be only ankle-deep. He went forward his foot sank deeper and the water went up to his thigh. Yet it was illogical to go back since the shore on the other side was only 3.2 meters away. He went forward again only to realize that he had been mistaken. It was too late. He found himself unable to move forward, but unable to turn back since one more step could have him wash with the current. One-step and it brought the waters up to his chest, the very centre of the fast current; deep and rough, unlike the current one step before.

The current for this body of water was much stronger than what it appeared. In the middle of this waters was apparently a current so strong it could wash him backwards. He stepped precariously on very soft soil that reached his knees in the very middle of it. It seemed almost as if there were no solid ground beneath him. The soil to which he stood was as soft as cotton and that threatened to uproot his feet. That was when he came to an important realization. This piece of water was not like the other pools he had to cross. It was not in fact, a pool. It was water that came from the vast sea itself right from a mile away, and never stopping, snaked away from the seashore towards the forest and the mountains. It was a river. It never stopped. Although the area in which he chose was only five meters away from the opposing land, this body of water widened as it went away from the sea. It was an estuary. And estuaries have strong currents. He was at a loss if he would go forward or back. Any movement could give more ammunition to the current to finally move him down. He was at the centre of an estuary.

He heard Amanda gasp. Dropping everything she was holding, she shouted. "Sarek, get out from there!"

"I am not from a water-planet. I did not know this was a dangerous place. I underestimated the current in this part of the sea."

"I'm sorry, I'm- Just hold up okay? Don't ever let go. It would have you smashed to the wide river with all those rocks!"

"I have no intention of going anywhere, although the soil beneath me seems to disagree."

"We need ropes!" said Amanda, holding her head and pacing around in order to think.

"Calm yourself," persuaded Sarek.

"I have no ropes! If I go back to the pod, you would be gone, and who knows where I'll find your body?"

"That is a logical assumption," said Sarek calmly. "I request that if such an event occurs that you abandon the search for my body and not put yourself in additional peril."

Amanda laughed and cried with her last statement. It looked like she wanted to punch him and hug him at the same time which she was sure he would find illogical.

There were no ropes here, and her satchel was too short. Sarek winced as she began to take off her clothes. Sensing her intentions, he diverted his eyes away from her.

"Oh for heaven's sake. You've seen me remove my clothes yesterday when I went for a swim."

"Just because you allowed yourself to be viewed in the state of undress yesterday does not mean it stands the same today."

"Sarek, look at me, I'm going to throw my clothes to you."

"Why would you—"

"Catch it! I'll pull you."

He turned his head and saw that she had tied her clothes together to construct a makeshift rope that could reach him. He caught it swiftly and thus began their laborious climb back to the sand. Sarek was reluctant to pull so hard. He was too heavy and Amanda might get pulled in with him if he leaned in too much of his weight.

Her foot was deep in the soft sand but it was little comfort compared to the currents of the sea. Amanda gave one last pull then she fell back, taking Sarek with her. They were both safe on the edge, she on her back, and Sarek facing down, both panting in the sand. How many more lives must he owe this woman?

After a couple of seconds of hard breathing, he finally noticed that he was effectively on top of her and pinning her to the ground.

"Forgive me. It was not my intention to-"

"What were you thinking?!" she told him when they got their breath back.

Sarek rolled onto his back and closed his eyes as soon as he faced the sun that was now up. "The seaweed on the other side appears to be abundant. I was simply about to gather them."

"Sarek, that water you see draining from the ocean is the one supplying the marshes where we boated," said Amanda.

Sarek considered this. "The water-world is indeed a surprising planet."

Amanda sat up and looked over to the other side of the estuary, then looked back to their side of the sand. She seems to be noticing the same thing he had put forward: their side was surprisingly bleaker of seaweed compared to the other side. There were bigger rocks there, and the seaweed hung over their sides like Christmas decorations. It was probable that the reasons for its abundance was also because of its current inaccessibility to animal consumers of this planet that came from the land. The creatures of this planet may have had a hard time crossing the estuary currents too. "Yes, the seaweed seems to be always greener on the other side."

"Have we gathered enough food?" asked Sarek.

"Yes, enough. But we are so far away from our pod, and we don't know the moon cycles on when it would be low tide again. It may not come sooner before we're out of food and starving to our deaths again. We take what we can." And before he could protest she had already dived headfirst to the currents and swam like a mermaid who had no trouble with water. He finally noticed that she did not swim straight to the other side. She swam slowly diagonally across the current. It was simple Physics. How could he have missed such a factor? She emerged from the water with her back fully exposed to him. Tendrils of water flowed from her body. She shook her hair from her face.

"Sarek, are you listening?" Sarek woke up from his reverie. "I said toss me my clothes, will you? I didn't want them wet." He looked at his hands and finally noticed that he was still holding her clothes. He tossed it to her.

"Thanks!" she said.

"How come you can swim such currents?" he called over to her on his side.

"You can too if you did it all your life!" she shouted back. "But don't try it on your own now. Just stay on your side!"

She plucked a fair amount of seaweed, put it in her satchel and hurled it over to his side. Sarek caught it and began to pile it under the heat of the sun to dry, just as Amanda hurled another batch. Between both of them, they managed to construct a meal of crunchy seaweed for dinner by snaking the leaves on a stick and sticking it into the fire. Amanda found a big seashell and they boiled some of the seaweed in it. It gave a different rich flavour than what he was used to. Especially now that they already have access to salt.

They were eating comfortably by the fire when she noticed something different from the seaside. It came on so gradually that his eyes did not easily notice its presence. At the onset of sunset, there was a faint glow in the sand. One might surmise it was only the shine of the reflection of the sand from the last vestiges of the sun, or simply a different colour attributed to the trick of the eye as the light began to fade. But as the sun faded gradually, so did the illumination on the sands increase. Little dots of varying degrees of light, in different parts of the sand, at first were only a handful, but soon so many it could number thousands. Very soon Sarek found himself facing a horizon of undulating sand with different shades of illuminating colour. the shore was lit up by a thousand lights, each parts fading and lighting according to their own volition.

Amanda could not curb her curiosity. She immediately approached the nearest sand that she could see held the brightest and the most clump of small lights. The moment she stepped near the sand that had lights, the lights went out. She tried selecting a clump of lights again, only to have the same results happen. There was nothing in the sand.

Sarek finally took pity, rose to his feet and went near her. He held her arm from behind to stop her from moving. "The creatures will come out again once they are tricked that we are not here, just like earlier," he whispered. The uneven waves of the sand were familiar to him in some ways as the dessert in his own home planet. The creatures on this planet made some similar tracks and exhibited similar behaviours. The only difference was that it was wet sand instead of dry.

They stood stock-still, of what might have passed for eternity in just a few seconds. Very soon, the little glow creatures started coming out and crawling now at their feet, seemingly forgetting that it was she who was seen as the predator a little bit earlier. One by one, the crustaceans burrowed themselves upwards once they thought the predators were gone. They were like balls with a lot of legs protruding all over their bodies so that when they move, they simply had to roll. It tickled but Amanda patiently endured it knowing that any sudden move could have them all scampering back in their holes. He could see that they had eyes but it was too dark to see their mouths. And each of them gave off a faint green glow. Some, brighter than others, but all of them completely aesthetically pleasing. Amanda let one creature roll through her palms then she lifted it up to examine it more closely. But it immediately retracted all its legs and curled up into a tight ball before she could see anything. You could not pry it open unless you wanted it to break into pieces. The light from the creature faded then died completely in total darkness.

"Stay very still," whispered Sarek behind her. He got hold of her palm below in order to steady it. The creature slowly sprang up and lit up from its ball like a rose that slowly bloomed. It rolled through the hollow of her palm until she set it free again on the ground. It soon lighted again and rejoined its companions.

Soon, they were surrounded by a glorious sea of lights that looked like it spanned beyond eternity. And like the melody of an orchestra, they lighted up with different intensities that created an undulating beauty of in waves of giant proportions. Her head swivelled everywhere to affirm that she was surrounded with such vast wonder. She looked so small compared to the vast array of light that surrounded her. Amanda was overwhelmed, he could feel it in their bond, lingering beneath their subconscious, also with a faint light.

.oOo.

Author's note: You know, if Sarek wasn't such a vegetarian, that seashore would be a minefield of food. We would just go to the beach to look for clams to eat. Then there are the crabs we could catch and the fishes. They can only eat seaweed. No hate for non-meat eaters out there. More power to you and to earth!

Reviewers get to save Sarek from drowning in the sea with their amazing swimming skills.

This chapter's bonus, reviewers could take Sarek to the Sea of Lights Beyond Eternity. What do you think? Too much purple prose?


End file.
